King Leopold’s Ghost
7 July 2011 | Media
‘A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa’ is the subtitle of this page-turner of a history. The Greed is down to King Leopold, the Belgian horror story, who grabbed a large tranche of central Africa and ran it ruthlessly as his personal colony. The Ter...
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Kisangani – at A Bend in the River
5 July 2011 | Places
I’ve been travelling the Congo, starting with a visit to Lubumbashi in Katanga Province. From there I went to the capital Kinshasa and made a sidetrip across the Congo River to Brazzaville the capital of the ‘other Congo,’ the Congo Republic. Then it was back to Kinsh...
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Dancing in the Glory of Monsters
16 June 2011 | Media
Jason Stearns’ book Dancing in the Glory of Monsters tries to unpick the story of ‘The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa.’ Clearly a near impossible task, because you’re still left fairly bemused at the end how all these events – from the Cold War to t...
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