5 Best biography books like King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild

Cover of King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

By: Adam Hochschild

4.18

Format: 442 pages, Kindle Edition

In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for …

"Most striking about the traditional societies of the Congo was their remarkable artwork: baskets, mats, pottery, copper and ironwork, and above all, woodcarving. It would be two decades before Europeans really noticed this art. Its discovery then had a strong influence on Braque, Matisse, and Picasso."

-Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

"Most striking about the traditional societies of the Congo was their remarkable artwork: baskets, mats, pottery, copper and ironwork, and above all, woodcarving. It would be two decades before Europeans really noticed this art. Its discovery then had a strong influence on Braque, Matisse, and Picasso."

-Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

"Most striking about the traditional societies of the Congo was their remarkable artwork: baskets, mats, pottery, copper and ironwork, and above all, woodcarving. It would be two decades before Europeans really noticed this art. Its discovery then had a strong influence on Braque, Matisse, and Picasso."

-Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

"Today we are less likely to speak of humanitarianism, with its overtones of paternalistic generosity, and more likely to speak of human rights. The basic freedoms in life are not seen as gifts to be doled out by benevolent well-wishers, but as Casement said at his trial, as those rights to which all human beings are entitled from birth. It is this spirit which underlies organizations like Amnesty International, with its belief that putting someone in prison solely for his or her opinion is a crime, whether it happens in China or Turkey or Argentina and Medecins Sans Frontieres, with its belief that a sick child is entitled to medical care, whether in Rwanda or Honduras or the South Bronx."

-Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

If you liked the biography plot in King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild , here is a list of 5 books like this:

Cover of Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa by Jason K. Stearns

1. Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

By: Jason K. Stearns

4.18

Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

At the heart of Africa is Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, bordering nine other nations… read more

Similar categories in Jason K. Stearns's Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • africa
  • history
  • world history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
"As so often happens in politics, what appears to be politically expedient for those in power rarely overlaps with the public interest. The lesser evils of the regime become entrenched, while the grea…"

-Jason K. Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

Cover of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown

2. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

By: Dee Brown

4.25

Format: 509 pages, Paperback

Now a special 30th-anniversary edition in both hardcover and paperback, the classic bestselling his… read more

Similar categories in Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • politics
  • nonfiction
"It is too often the case,"

-Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

"We rarely know the full power of words, in print or spoken."

-Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

"One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk.' - Tashunka Witko (Crazy Horse)"

-Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

"To the Indians it seemed that these Europeans hated everything in nature - the living forests and their birds and beasts, the grassy grades, the water, the soil, the air itself."

-Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

Cover of SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

3. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

By: Mary Beard

3.59

Format: 320 pages, Paperback

New York TimesBestseller * National Book Critics Circle Finalist * Wall Street JournalBest Books of… read more

Similar categories in Mary Beard's SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • history
Cover of In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick

4. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

By: Nathaniel Philbrick

4.16

Format: 302 pages, Paperback

"With its huge, scarred head halfway out of the water and its tail beating the ocean into a white-w… read more

Similar categories in Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • historical
  • history
  • biography
  • nonfiction
"There was a saying on the island: "[I]t is a pity to spoil a good mate by making him a master."

-Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

"Unable to sleep for the third night in a row, he continued to dwell obsessively on the circumstances of the ship's sinking. He could not get the creature out of his mind."

-Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

"Many of the so-called American characteristics,’ a chronicler of the [WW2 University of Minnesota starvation] experiment wrote, ‘—abounding energy, generosity, optimism—become intelligible as the exp…"

-Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

"How much of assumed national and personal character comes from the fact that we have never truly known need to the point of having our character tested? Willing conscientious objectors underwent cont…"

-Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

Cover of A Distant Mirror:  The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman

5. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

By: Barbara W. Tuchman

3.99

Format: 272 pages,

Barbara W. Tuchman--the acclaimed author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic The Guns of August--… read more

Similar categories in Barbara W. Tuchman's A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • history
  • european history
Cover of 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann

6. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

By: Charles C. Mann

4.22

Format: 432 pages, Hardcover

Over 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. They developed different … read more

Similar categories in Charles C. Mann's 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • nonfiction
  • history
  • world history

7. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families

By: Philip Gourevitch

3.36

Format: None pages,

In April of 1994, the government of Rwanda called on everyone in the Hutu majority to kill everyone… read more

Similar categories in Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

Cover of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany by William L. Shirer

8. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

By: William L. Shirer

4.21

Format: 1147 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Hitler boasted that The Third Reich would last a thousand years. It lasted only 12. But those 12 ye… read more

Similar categories in William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • history
  • historical
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • european history
"One of them was Fritz Thyssen, one of the earliest and biggest contributors to the party. Fleeing the "Nazi regime has ruined German industry." And to all he met abroad he proclaimed, "What a fool ( …"

-William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

"To some Germans and, no doubt, to most foreigners it appeared that a charlatan had come to power in Berlin. To the majority of Germans Hitler had — or would shortly assume — the aura of a truly chari…"

-William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

"In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electr…"

-William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

"Adolf Hitler is probably the last of the great adventurer-conquerors in the tradition of Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon, and the Third Reich the last of the empires which set out on the path taken ea…"

-William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

9. Heart of Darkness

By: Joseph Conrad

3.99

Format: 284 pages, Paperback

Marlow, a seaman and wanderer, recounts his physical and psychological journey in search of the inf… read more

Similar categories in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

10. Power Over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present

By: Daniel R. Headrick

3.86

Format: None pages, Hardcover

For six hundred years, the nations of Europe and North America have periodically attempted to coerc… read more

Similar categories in Daniel R. Headrick's Power Over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

11. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

By: Charles C. Mann

4.23

Format: 11 pages, Paperback

A groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival o… read more

Similar categories in Charles C. Mann's 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

12. In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo

By: Michela Wrong

3.24

Format: 324 pages, Paperback

He was known as "the Leopard," and for the thirty-two years of his reign Mobutu Sese Seko, presiden… read more

Similar categories in Michela Wrong's In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

13. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

By: Peter Frankopan

3.77

Format: None pages,

From the rise and fall of empires in China, Persia, and Rome itself to the spread of Buddhism and a… read more

Similar categories in Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads: A New History of the World book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

Cover of Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara

14. Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

By: Siddharth Kara

4.37

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

The revelatory New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller, shortlisted for the Financial Times… read more

Similar categories in Siddharth Kara's Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • politics
  • africa
  • history
  • nonfiction
"Now you understand how people like us work?"

-Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

"Nothing looks the same after a trip to the Congo. The world back home no longer makes sense. It is difficult to reconcile how it even inhabits the same planet. Neatly arranged mountains of vegetables…"

-Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

"Cobalt mining is the slave farm perfected. The cost of labor has been nullified through the degradation of Africans at the bottom of an economic chain that purports to exonerate all participants of a…"

-Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

Cover of The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

15. The Guns of August

By: Barbara W. Tuchman

4.18

Format: 658 pages, Kindle Edition

The Proud Tower, the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Guns of August, and The Zimmerman Telegram comprise… read more

Similar categories in Barbara W. Tuchman's The Guns of August book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • history
  • world history
  • historical
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • european history
"Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general."

-Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August

"Now according to German logic, a declaration of war was found to be unnecessary because of imaginary bombings"

-Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August

"Human beings, like plans, prove fallible in the presence of those ingredients that are missing in maneuvers - danger, death, and live ammunition."

-Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August

"To think meant to give room for freedom of initiative, for the imponderable to win over the material, for will to demonstrate its power over circumstance."

-Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August

Cover of The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides

16. The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook

By: Hampton Sides

4.51

Format: 408 pages, Hardcover

From New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides, an epic account of the most momentous voyage … read more

Similar categories in Hampton Sides's The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • history
  • biography
  • world history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
Cover of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

17. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

By: Jack Weatherford

4.06

Format: 352 pages, Kindle Edition

The name Genghis Khan often conjures the image of a relentless, bloodthirsty barbarian on horseback… read more

Similar categories in Jack Weatherford's Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • history
  • biography
  • world history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
"The first key to leadership is self-control."

-Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

"Without the vision of a goal, a man cannot manage his own life, much less the lives of others."

-Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

"A leader should demonstrate his thoughts and opinions through his actions, not through his words."

-Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

"The first key to leadership was self-control, particularly the mastery of pride, which was something more difficult, he explained, to subdue than a wild lion and anger, which was more difficult to de…"

-Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Cover of King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild

18. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

By: Adam Hochschild

4.18

Format: 442 pages, Kindle Edition

In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for … read more

Similar categories in Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • africa
  • race
  • biography
  • history
  • world history
  • historical
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • european history
  • belgium
"Most striking about the traditional societies of the Congo was their remarkable artwork: baskets, mats, pottery, copper and ironwork, and above all, woodcarving. It would be two decades before Europe…"

-Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

"Today we are less likely to speak of humanitarianism, with its overtones of paternalistic generosity, and more likely to speak of human rights. The basic freedoms in life are not seen as gifts to be …"

-Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

"Most striking about the traditional societies of the Congo was their remarkable artwork: baskets, mats, pottery, copper and ironwork, and, above all, woodcarving. It would be two decades before Europ…"

-Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

Cover of The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

19. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

By: David Grann

4.19

Format: 331 pages, Hardcover

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story o… read more

Similar categories in David Grann's The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • history
Cover of The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination by Stuart A. Reid

20. The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination

By: Stuart A. Reid

4.40

Format: 640 pages, Hardcover

A spellbinding work of history that reads like a Cold War spy thriller—about the US-sanctioned plot… read more

Similar categories in Stuart A. Reid's The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • africa
  • biography
  • history
  • world history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
Cover of The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi

21. The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017

By: Rashid Khalidi

4.50

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US … read more

Similar categories in Rashid Khalidi's The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017 book and Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

  • historical
  • politics
  • history
  • nonfiction

15 best-selling history books like King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild

Transform Your Habits

Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

Jason K. Stearns

4.18

Transform Your Habits

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

Dee Brown

4.25

Transform Your Habits

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

Mary Beard

3.59

Transform Your Habits

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

Nathaniel Philbrick

4.16

View all the books

21 Best audiobook books like The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination by Stuart A. Reid

Transform Your Habits

Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

Siddharth Kara

4.37

Transform Your Habits

The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook

Hampton Sides

4.51

Transform Your Habits

King: A Life

Jonathan Eig

4.67

Transform Your Habits

Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849

Christopher Clark

4.18

View all the books

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