Methods and Paradigm of Forced Labor And Slavery - Book Report/Review Example

Methods And Paradigm Of Forced Labor And Slavery Introduction Adam Hochschild’s book, ‘King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa’ makes an emphatic assertion of the political situations prevailed in the African province of Congo in the dark history of the colonial world. The book is entirely composed around Leopold II, the Belgian king, who took Congo State under his custody for twenty three years until the region was annexed as Belgian Congo in 1905. Hochschild specifically describes the greed of the autocratic regimes and the strategies employed for achieving the geographical expansion of their political authority in his wonderful analysis of the colonial history of Africa. Adam Hochschild is a New York based American writer who is famous as a reputed author, journalist and lecturer. He did his graduation in literature and history from Harvard University 1963. His contributions to critical literary work started much early in his life, which helped him much in transforming his thoughts to become a political critic with historical outlook. His attachment to concepts like human rights and social justice are apparent in the course pattern and thematic outline of most of his writings. Being a left wing activist, his works symbolically represent the critical views against the capitalist policies of the government. Hochschild has won an array of awards for his excellent service to American literature. California Book Awards(1998), Duff Cooper Prize(1999), National Book Award(2005), Dayton Literary Peace Prize(2012) etc are a few in the list. The Story: Cruelty for Socio-Economic and Political Evaluation There is much about the rather insignificant and unidentified African region in the book. It essentially focuses on the methods and paradigm of forced labor and slavery applied in the extraction of wealth and the strategies applied by the king to protect the region from the colonial approach of the European business interests. As historical approach, the book has done its share in connecting the synopses from different perspectives and made it easy to understand how powerful a device terror was in accomplishing the political expansion meant for exploiting the wealth of Congo. The story of King Leopold II has been told as representation of psychological transformation of a man’s conglomerated greed involving political anxiety and voracity for material wealth and the eventual socio-economic changes that was experienced in the region with the entry of the European exploration around the World War I. The miseries of the people of Congo were truly shocking. They were treated with barbarian methods for exploiting labor and other physical favors including sex. Since Leopold was an invader, he held no moral concern for the local people, whom he treated as his reservoir for wealth and power. References in the book show that he used brutal methods like torture, captivity, coercion and terror for the service of highly labor-intensive factories and industries. His prime focus hit the county’s abundance in rubber and the cash-rich ivory. Hence he developed policies to hinder the intrusion of outsiders by securing the Congo province under his control back in Belgium. For a long time in the history since the British started their colonizing expeditions across the globe, and even after conquering a large part of Africa too, the rich domain of wild rubber and ivory was naturally concealed for many centuries. The Congo River has significantly played a role in both covering and revealing the interiors of Africa in its history. Most of the explorers returned for lack of proper geographical planning before entering far west in the region. It was the entry of Henry Morton Stanley, an adventurous English explorer, that the political history of Congo started taking a change from. Initially, Stanley only expressed his ideas to open the trade. Soon after that, his ability in organizing people for common and expansive construction work was magnificent which attracted the attention of the king. Both Leopold and Stanley had their own missions to accomplish with relates to the virgin assets deep in the forest of the economically potential domain. History tells that they realized the dreams of each other still kept trying to propose and execute plans for mutual happiness. As Hochschild (2011) illustrates, Leopold had recognized how huge Stanley’s aspiration was, and besides estimating his incredible capacity to endeavor, he identified that Stanley was passionate about adulation and that he wanted a sponsor. One the other hand, Stanley was overjoyed to find a king who venerated his exceptional merit as an explorer of the region where the British did not have a clue to enter (p.63). In due course, Stanley emerged as an English symbol of colonialism who worked for the political control of Congo by the British regime. He identified the French as a common enemy for both Leopold’s objectives and the emerging English capitalistic trade policies. Stanley’s heroism in the history is obvious across his emissary service to King Leopold and for being an official spokesman for Bismarck in the furthering amendments and pacts related to the control of Congo. Continuous reading of the book reveals the actors related to extreme cruelty surfaced under the Congo region after its much awaited recognition as a Free State under the Belgian control. With the coalition of Stanley’s English brilliance, King Leopold designed new economic policies and ventured construction works in the infrastructure development in the county for free and easy internal transportation of commercial goods. For this purpose, Stanley’s crewmen worked hard and erected several bridges, made roads and lay rail tracks to reach the basic commodities like ivory and rubber in large volumes. For the extraction and ensuring the sustainability of increased supply of the commercial valuables, Leopold used immensely fearful methods of terror among the locals. With the quantity of rubber supply requirement and its trade feasibility increasing, the Congo men were forced to do slave-labor and their women were subjected to shameful proportions of physical and emotional abuse. Later in the beginning of the 20th century, with the intervention of more catholic missionaries and political representatives of countries like America and Great Britain, King Leopold was forced to redeem his monarchial exploitation strategies and go back to Belgium. However, the horror that his regime created had deeply engrossed the people of the Congo region, whose remaining lifestyle and political system still experience the tyranny which they believe as cast by the King Leopold’s Ghost. The Literature: Evaluation Summary It is no exaggeration to proclaim that Adam Hochschild deserves a loud applause for the excellent presentation of the historical documentation in the form of beautiful story. The author has shown a matchless blend of biography, travelogue, geography and socio-economic evolutions in the African and European business interest of the 19th century for the critical reading of a history scholar. The literature in the book reconciles the wit emphasized in its title with the specifications of the barbaric methods used for the exploitation of human labor. The references of European advent to settle a colony in the African region reflects a magnificent picture of the English influence in the African history. Besides this, Stanley’s achievement in unfolding and colonizing an unfound land like the Congo belt is a clear indicator of the exemplary skills of the Europeans in the field of economic explorations. It is also evident from the details of commodities and their trading diplomacies that Hochschild had done a greatly accurate study before the work to instill the enthusiasm of the readers. In a nutshell, it is a wonderful book of untold stories about the dark folds of the historic transformation of colonial Africa through decades-long perils of exploitation and gradual political changes inspired by the Europeans. References Hochschild, A. (2011). King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. US: Pan Macmillan. Read More