I can’t remember the last time a book made me feel this physically sick. About half way through another description of the murders, rapes, dismemberments, garrotings, hangings, torture and shootings carried out by members of the Force Publique which policed the forced labour system set up by King Leopold II in his colony in the Congo (1885 to 1909), I thought I might throw up.
Leopold II, king of the Belgians, and his genocide
If you like historical horror stories, you’ll love this book. It intertwines a biography of lonely unloved Leopold – aloof, shy king of the Belgians, ignored by his parents, separated from his wife – who conceived a great ambition to own a chunk of the dark continent, Africa, during the 1880s when it was being carved up by the the European powers.
Hochschild describes how, once he’d decided on the Congo to be his slice of…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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