Finished choking down Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. This is a rather gruesome account of the Congo Free State; a private fiefdom of Belgium's King Leopold II where literally millions of people (minimum estimates are in the vicinity of 5-million) died to fill the King's personal coffers with money from ivory and rubber in the last decade of the 19th Century and the first years of the 20th. Included is the story of the first successful international human rights campaign that resulted in the formal annexation of the Congo by Belgium and the end of Leopold's direct rule. Disturbing reading, even in a world jaded by humanitarian disasters like Darfur, Rwanda, the Holocaust and the Gulag. Well written and worth a look by anyone interested in Africa, Imperialism or human rights advocacy.
Just started The Madman and the Butcher by Tim Cook; about the conflict between Canada's Great War military leaders' Sam Hughes and Arthur Currie.
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