Bücher von Adam Hochschild

WINNER OF THE 1999 DUFF COOPER PRIZE. 'Brilliant .. this book must be read and re-read' Neal Ascherson'. 'A hundred years ago, enlightened people in the western world were outraged by a holocaust in Africa which left millions dead. Denunciations thundered from speaker's platforms around the US and Europe. One open letter to The Times was signed by 11 peers, 19 bishops and 75 MPs. Viscount Grey, Britain's foreign secretary, declared that no overseas issue had so intensely aroused the British public for 30 years. Conan Doyle wrote a pamphlet on the Congo atrocities which sold 25,000 copies in the first week alone. Yet today not one person in a thousand could say what the fuss was all about, unless, of course, they have read this amazing book.' Tariq Ali, Financial Times 'Fascinating ... brilliant and gripping' Mail on Sunday 'An exemplary piece of history writing: urgent, vivid and compelling' Literary Review

From the author of the best-selling King Leopold's Ghost, this haunting and deeply honest memoir tells of Adam Hochschild's conflicted relationship with his father, the head of a multinational mining corporation. The author lyrically evokes his privileged childhood on an Adirondack estate, a colorful uncle who was a pioneer aviator and fighter ace, and his first explorations of the larger world he encountered as he came of age in the tumultuous 1960s. But above all this is a story of a father and his only son and of the unexpected peace finally made between them.

Geiselnahme, Vergewaltigung, Mißhandlung und Mord waren die Instrumente, die Leopolds Statthalter einsetzten, um den kongolesischen Ureinwohnern die geforderten Quoten an Kautschuk und Elfenbein abzupressen. Wer Widerstand leistete, wurde umgebracht oder verstümmelt. Als die Kampagnen der Menschenrechtsbewegung um Edmund Morel den König 1908 zur Aufgabe seiner Kolonie gezwungen hatten, war die Bevölkerungszahl des Kongo um etwa zehn Millionen Menschen gesunken.Adam Hochschild geht den Spuren dieser Schreckensherrschaft nach. Er erzählt von den Abenteurern, die das riesige und nahezu undurchdringliche Gebiet um den Kongo-Strom erforschten, von politischen Ränkespielen und von der Entschlossenheit, mit der Männer wie Morel ohne Rücksicht auf ihre berufliche Karriere und allen Repressalien zum Trotz den Kampf gegen Leopolds Terrorsystem aufnahmen.

A brilliant new history of the First World War by the bestselling and prizewinning author of King Leopold's Ghost and Bury the Chains