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King Leopold's Ghost
''King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa'' (1998) is a best-selling popular history book by Adam Hochschild that explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of the Belgians between 1885 and 1908, as well as the large-scale atrocities committed during that period. The book, also a general biography of the private life of King Leopold, succeeded in increasing public awareness of these crimes in recent decades.: "The story is familiar thanks to Adam Hochschild's 1998 book, ''King Leopold's Ghost''." The book was refused by nine of the ten U.S. publishing houses to which an outline was submitted, but became an unexpected bestseller and won the prestigious Mark Lynton History Prize for literary style. It also won the 1999 Duff Cooper Prize. By 2013 more than 600,000 copies were in print in a dozen languages. The book is the basis of a 2006 documentary film of the same name, directed by Pippa Scott and narrated ...
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Adam Hochschild
Adam Hochschild ( ; born October 5, 1942) is an American author, journalist, historian and lecturer. His best-known works include ''King Leopold's Ghost'' (1998), ''To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918'' (2011), '' Bury the Chains'' (2005), '' The Mirror at Midnight'' (1990), ''The Unquiet Ghost'' (1994), and '' Spain in Our Hearts'' (2016). Biography Adam Hochschild was born in New York City. His father, Harold Hochschild, was of German Jewish descent; his mother, Mary Marquand Hochschild, was of English and Scottish descent and the daughter of pioneering art historian Allan Marquand, and an uncle by marriage, Boris Sergievsky, was a World War I fighter pilot in the Imperial Russian Air Force. His German-born paternal grandfather Berthold Hochschild co-founded the mining firm American Metal Company. Hochschild graduated from Harvard in 1963 with a BA in History and Literature. As a college student, he spent a summer working on an anti-government ...
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Diogo Cão
Diogo Cão (; – 1486), also known as Diogo Cam, was a Portuguese mariner and one of the most notable explorers of the fifteenth century. He made two voyages along the west coast of Africa in the 1480s, exploring the Congo River and the coasts of present-day Angola and Namibia. Early life and family Little is known about the early life of Diogo Cão. According to tradition, he was born in Vila Real, Portugal, around 1452. His grandfather, Gonçalo Cão, had fought for Portuguese independence at the Battle of Aljubarrota. By 1480, Cão was sailing off the coast of Africa in the service of João II. There is a record that he returned to Portugal with captured Spanish ships. Exploration When the Treaty of Alcáçovas (1480) confirmed Portugal's monopoly on trade and exploration along Africa's west coast, João II moved quickly to secure and expand his hold on the region. In 1481, a fleet of ten ships was dispatched to the Gold Coast to construct a fortress known as São Jorge d ...
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The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington metropolitan area and has a national audience. As of 2023, the ''Post'' had 130,000 print subscribers and 2.5 million digital subscribers, both of which were the List of newspapers in the United States, third-largest among U.S. newspapers after ''The New York Times'' and ''The Wall Street Journal''. The ''Post'' was founded in 1877. In its early years, it went through several owners and struggled both financially and editorially. In 1933, financier Eugene Meyer (financier), Eugene Meyer purchased it out of bankruptcy and revived its health and reputation; this work was continued by his successors Katharine Graham, Katharine and Phil Graham, Meyer's daughter and son-in-law, respectively, who bought out several rival publications. The ''Post ...
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The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of the longest-running newspapers in the United States, the ''Times'' serves as one of the country's Newspaper of record, newspapers of record. , ''The New York Times'' had 9.13 million total and 8.83 million online subscribers, both by significant margins the List of newspapers in the United States, highest numbers for any newspaper in the United States; the total also included 296,330 print subscribers, making the ''Times'' the second-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States, following ''The Wall Street Journal'', also based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' is published by the New York Times Company; since 1896, the company has been chaired by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, whose current chairman and the paper's publ ...
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Jeremy Harding
Jeremy Harding (born 1952) is a British writer and journalist, based in the south of France. He is a contributing editor at ''London Review of Books''. He is the author of books including ''Small Wars, Small Mercies'' (1993), ''The Uninvited: Refugees at the Rich Man's Gate'' (2000), ''Mother Country: Memoir of an Adopted Boy'' (2006), and ''Border Vigils: Keeping Migrants Out of the Rich World'' (2012). Life and work Harding was born in London, England, where he was placed for adoption at 11 days old by his Irish mother. He grew up in West London. He tells the story of his adoption and the search for his biological mother in the book ''Mother Country: Memoir of an Adopted Boy''. He was later educated at Wellington College and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read English. He is a contributing editor at the ''London Review of Books''. He lives in France, an hour from Bordeaux, with his wife and three sons. Publications Publications by Harding *''Small Wars, Small Mercies: ...
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New York Review Of Books
New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995 * "New" (Daya song), 2017 * "New" (No Doubt song), 1999 * "new", a song by Loona from the 2017 single album '' Yves'' * "The New", a song by Interpol from the 2002 album ''Turn On the Bright Lights'' Transportation * Lakefront Airport, New Orleans, U.S., IATA airport code NEW * Newcraighall railway station, Scotland, station code NEW Other uses * ''New'' (film), a 2004 Tamil movie * New (surname), an English family name * NEW (TV station), in Australia * new and delete (C++), in the computer programming language * Net economic welfare, a proposed macroeconomic indicator * Net explosive weight, also known as net explosive quantity * Network of enlightened Women, an American organization * Newar language, ISO 639-2/3 language code new * Next Entertainment World, a South Korean media com ...
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Royal Museum For Central Africa
The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) (; ; ), communicating under the name AfricaMuseum since 2018, is an ethnography and natural history museum situated in Tervuren in Flemish Brabant, Belgium, just outside Brussels. It was originally built to showcase King Leopold II's Congo Free State in the International Exposition of 1897. The museum focuses on the Congo, a former Belgian colony. The sphere of interest, however, especially in biological research, extends to the whole Congo Basin, Central Africa, East Africa, and West Africa, attempting to integrate "Africa" as a whole. Intended originally as a colonial museum, from 1960 onwards it has focused more on ethnography and anthropology. Like most museums, it houses a research department in addition to its public exhibit department. Not all research pertains to Africa (e.g. research on the archaeozoology of Sagalassos, Turkey). Some researchers have strong ties with the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. In N ...
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Jules Marchal
Jules Marchal (1924 - 21 June 2003) was a Belgian diplomat and historian, who wrote extensively on the history of colonial exploitation in the Belgian Congo. Originally writing in Dutch, under the pseudonym A. M. Delathuy, he later published studies in French under his own name. Adam Hochschild, in his bestselling ''King Leopold's Ghost'', praised Marchal's work as "the best scholarly overview by far, encyclopedic in scope". In the mid-1970s, Marchal first read that it was believed in the Anglo-Saxon world that under Leopold II half of the native population had perished, approximately ten million people He went to do archival research to debunk this, but on the contrary he came across truths about the reign of terror that were previously unknown to him. Towards the end of his career, he began to publish a steady stream of bulky studies on the subject. Marchal, for his part, considered the work of Belgian historians on the colonial period law-abiding and respectable. They avoide ...
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World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting took place mainly in European theatre of World War I, Europe and the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I, Middle East, as well as in parts of African theatre of World War I, Africa and the Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I, Asia-Pacific, and in Europe was characterised by trench warfare; the widespread use of Artillery of World War I, artillery, machine guns, and Chemical weapons in World War I, chemical weapons (gas); and the introductions of Tanks in World War I, tanks and Aviation in World War I, aircraft. World War I was one of the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflicts in history, resulting in an estimated World War I casualties, 10 million military dead and more than 20 million wounded, plus some 10 million civilian de ...
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William Henry Sheppard
William Henry Sheppard (March 8, 1865 – November 25, 1927) was one of the earliest African Americans to become a missionary for the Presbyterian Church. He spent 20 years in Africa, primarily in and around the Congo Free State, and is best known for his efforts to publicize the atrocities committed against the Kuba Kingdom, Kuba and other Congolese peoples by Leopold II of Belgium, King Leopold II's ''Force Publique''. Sheppard's efforts contributed to the contemporary debate on European colonialism and imperialism in the region, particularly among those of the African-American community.Füllberg-Stolberg (1999), p. 215. However, it has been noted that he traditionally received little attention in literature on the subject.Füllberg-Stolberg (1992), pp. 225–226. Early life and education Sheppard was born in Waynesboro, Virginia, on March 8, 1865, to William Henry Sheppard, Sr. and Fannie Frances Sheppard (née Martin), a free "mulatto, dark mulatto", a month before the end o ...
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George Washington Williams
George Washington Williams (October 16, 1849 – August 2, 1891) was a soldier in the American Civil War and in Mexico before becoming a Baptist minister, politician, lawyer, journalist, and writer on African-American history. He served in the Ohio House of Representatives. In the late 1880s, Williams turned his interest to Europe and Africa. After having been impressed by meeting King Leopold II of Belgium, he traveled in 1890 to the Congo Free State (then owned by the king) to see its development. Shocked by the widespread brutal abuses and slavery imposed on the Congolese, he wrote an open letter to Leopold in 1890 about the suffering of the region's native inhabitants at the hands of the king's agents. This letter, which subsequently popularized the term "crimes against humanity", was a catalyst for an international outcry against the regime running the Congo, which had caused millions of deaths. Early life Williams was born free in 1849 in Bedford Springs, Pennsylvani ...
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Roger Casement
Roger David Casement (; 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916), known as Sir Roger Casement, CMG, between 1911 and 1916, was a diplomat and Irish nationalist executed by the United Kingdom for treason during World War I. He worked for the British Foreign Office as a diplomat, becoming known as a humanitarian activist, and later as a poet and Easter Rising leader. Described as the "father of twentieth-century human rights investigations", he was honoured in 1905 for the Casement Report on the Congo and knighted in 1911 for his important investigations of human rights abuses in the rubber industry in Peru. In Africa as a young man, Casement first worked for commercial interests before joining the British Colonial Service. In 1891 he was appointed as a British consul, a profession he followed for more than 20 years. Influenced by the Boer War and his investigation into colonial atrocities against indigenous peoples, Casement grew to mistrust imperialism. After retiring from consula ...
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