Scan barcode
Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'
Congo: The Epic History of a People by David Van Reybrouck
1 review
bauke's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
3.25
While I learned a lot from this, I suspect there are better sources available to learn about Congolese history.
I'll start with some positives. The book gives a clear and accessible narrative account of the history of the DRC. It starts with a sketch of pre-history, and covers European exploration, colonization, exploitation, decolonization, the first republic of Kasavubu and Lumumba, Mobutu's dictatorship, and both Kabila's up to the point where the book was written. I found the part about decolonization especially useful in understanding how the DRC was set up to fail from the beginning. It makes the complex entanglement Rwanda and the Rwandan genocide more or less intelligible.
I loved Reybrouck's approach of trying to find people who experienced history firsthand, recording their experience and using this to ground the narrative. Undoubtedly much history that otherwise would have been lost was saved this, and some of the life stories covered are truly fascinating. Unfortunately at least one of the interviewees (the man who supposedly stole the Belgian king's sword from its scabbard during the independence celebration) is not in fact that person and seems to have lied, which the audiobook at least does not mention. That the author was unable to catch sadly casts doubt on the other interesting stories he recorderd. This goes especially for the most interesting account, of a man who claimed in 2006 to be 126 years old and to have met the first English missionaries to traverse Congo. I really hope his account is genuine, but the author himself confesses that he cannot be sure it is.
The author would have done well to start with a statement about his possible biases, as we learn only halfway through that his father worked in Congo during the Katangan secession. Many other reviewers have noted that the author, who to be sure is critical of western involvement in general, and Belgian colonialism in particular, is nevertheless not critical enough. I am not confident this book gave me a good understanding of the horrors of Leopold II's rule, and the author's focus on the point that while the horrors were terrible, Leopold likely did not intend them, seems odd. I will have to consult some other sources on this in the future.
I'll start with some positives. The book gives a clear and accessible narrative account of the history of the DRC. It starts with a sketch of pre-history, and covers European exploration, colonization, exploitation, decolonization, the first republic of Kasavubu and Lumumba, Mobutu's dictatorship, and both Kabila's up to the point where the book was written. I found the part about decolonization especially useful in understanding how the DRC was set up to fail from the beginning. It makes the complex entanglement Rwanda and the Rwandan genocide more or less intelligible.
I loved Reybrouck's approach of trying to find people who experienced history firsthand, recording their experience and using this to ground the narrative. Undoubtedly much history that otherwise would have been lost was saved this, and some of the life stories covered are truly fascinating. Unfortunately at least one of the interviewees (the man who supposedly stole the Belgian king's sword from its scabbard during the independence celebration) is not in fact that person and seems to have lied, which the audiobook at least does not mention. That the author was unable to catch sadly casts doubt on the other interesting stories he recorderd. This goes especially for the most interesting account, of a man who claimed in 2006 to be 126 years old and to have met the first English missionaries to traverse Congo. I really hope his account is genuine, but the author himself confesses that he cannot be sure it is.
The author would have done well to start with a statement about his possible biases, as we learn only halfway through that his father worked in Congo during the Katangan secession. Many other reviewers have noted that the author, who to be sure is critical of western involvement in general, and Belgian colonialism in particular, is nevertheless not critical enough. I am not confident this book gave me a good understanding of the horrors of Leopold II's rule, and the author's focus on the point that while the horrors were terrible, Leopold likely did not intend them, seems odd. I will have to consult some other sources on this in the future.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Racism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Cannibalism, Colonisation, and War