Title: Lord Leverhulme's ghosts
First published: 2008
Description: In the early twentieth century, the worldwide rubber boom led British enterpreneur Lord Leverhulme to the Belgian Congo. Warmly welcomed by the murderous regime of King Leopold II, Leverhulme set up a private kingdom reliant on the horrific Belgian system of forced labor, a program that reduced the population of Congo by half and accounted for more deaths than the Nazi holocaust. In this definitive, meticulously researched history, Jules Marchal exposes the nature of forced labor under Lord Leverhulme's rule and the appalling conditions imposed upon the inhabitants of Congo. With an extensive introduction by Adam Hochschild, "Lord Leverhulme's Ghosts" is an important and urgently needed account of a laboratory of colonial exploitation. -- Book jacket.
Subjects: History, Human rights, Race relations, Forced labor, Colonization, Relations with Blacks, Colonies, Rubber industry and trade, Exploitation, Imperialism, Belgium, social conditions, African Americans
Places: Congo (Democratic Republic), Great Britain, Africa
People: William Hesketh Lever Leverhulme Viscount (1851-1925)
Time periods: 1908-1960
LC classification: HD4875.C74 M3713 2008