King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
This book documents the human rights abuses in colonial Congo at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. It's a story that almost everyone has forgotten, even though it was the basis for Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. People assume that Heart of Darkness is supposed to be a wider metaphor for man's ability to commit horrible acts, but when it was written it was meant to be taken literally, as a barely fictionalized tale of what was happening in the Congo at the time. King Leopold's Ghost is very well researched and written. I'd recommend it to people who like non-fiction and history.
