Jenny’s Reviews > King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa > Status Update

'The politics of empathy are fickle.'

'What happened in the Congo was indeed mass murder on a vast scale,
but the sad truth is that the men who carried it out for Leopold were no
more murderous than many Europeans then at work or at war elsewhere in
Africa. '

'Leopold's apologists, then and now,'

What do you mean NOW?

I never once, in 257 pages thus far imagined there are people right now who believe Leopold did anything good in his entire life.

The one good thing he did was die and sadly that took a very long time to come to pass.

He was a miserable stain on humanity.

Three times now in only 6 pages I paused reading to look up things and fell into rabbit holes of disgusting ways men have treated women and girls.

I'm not even in the Congo during its time of true crimes against humanity in Africa yet. We're still getting funding to build the railroad.

I wish I had a time machine and a bloody big hammer.

OK, I am going to bed.

I read back a line on myself instead of following the sentence underneath so the British Anti Slavery Society became the British Anti Humanitarians.

I fully and readily believed that in 1876 this was a thing for a good 5 seconds before upon going back to reread the name of the man who was in charge to cast a curse on him from the future I realised my mistake.