The Troubled Heart of Africa: A History of the Congo (Hardcover)

~ Robert Edgerton (Author) "The Congo that so horrified Joseph Conrad in the 1890s embraced nearly 1 million square miles, an area as large as the United States east..." (more)
Key Phrases: white mercenaries, Free State, Tippu Tip, Force Publique (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

During the past few years, the Congo, long exploited for its natural resources and among the most corrupt countries in Africa, has been explored by a number of authors. Most of these books have been journalistic accounts, but Edgerton offers a historical narrative of a country ravaged by colonial exploitation and the corrupt rule of a native despot. His story is familiar, but it is told accurately and well, from the arrival of Portuguese explorers in the 16th century through the recent, brief rule of Laurent Kabila. The author doesn't neglect the detrimental role played by the West: the rule of Belgium's King Leopold symbolized the worst of colonial exploitation. But Edgerton (The Fall of the Asante Empire), a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, refrains from turning this into an anti-West morality tale. He shows how Arab invaders spread cannibalism and notes that Africans have not redeemed themselves when in charge of the country. As a result, there's little reason to doubt Edgerton's conclusion: "Even if an agreement about elections and army integration were, by some miracle, to take place, there is no reason to believe that peace would be restored" to this embattled country. This book serves as a basic primer on how one of the world's most mineral-rich countries was turned into one of its greatest tragedies. 8 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Without a doubt one of the most troubled regions in Africa, the Congo has a complex, often disturbing history. Populated by several different cultures, including the Mbuti Pygmies and the Bakongo, the Congo was unknown to Europeans until Diogo Cao, a Portuguese captain, ventured into its depths in 1482. Cao and his men were treated well, and in time more Europeans followed, many of them famous explorers, such as David Livingstone and Henry Stanley. Missionaries followed as well, determined to convert the peoples of the Congo to Christianity. King Leopold's "ownership" of the Congo--private property until Belgium "bought" it from him in 1908--devastated the denizens by forcing them to work under conditions so horrific that the population plummeted from 20 million to 6 million in less than 30 years. The year 1960 brought Congolese independence and ultimately brought to power Joseph-Desire Mobutu, who proved to be every bit as corrupt as his European predecessors. Joseph Kabila, the son of Mobutu's successor, now faces an international war and startling poverty levels. An engrossing albeit tragic history. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1 edition (December 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312304862
• ISBN-13: 978-0312304867
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #692,842 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A summary history of the Democratic Republic of Congo., October 2, 2003

By	Kevin M Quigg (Carol Stream, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Another fine book from Edgerton. For an anthropologist, Edgerton does a good job writing history. There have been several fine books about the Congo Free State and even Mobutu's Zaire, but none have wrapped up the history of this huge country as Edgerton has in this recent book. Basically, the author starts out with the description of the country, followed by a chapters on discovering the Congo, the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, the independence and civil war period, and Mobutu's Zaire.

The history goes through 2001.
I would have loved to see some views on what will happen to the Congo. Edgerton states that this country is rich in natural resources, but I wonder if it can really remain one single country due to the many tribes who live in the DRC. Ethnic hatreds flamed by neighboring aggressive countries will test the strength of this country remaining as one. If not, perhaps the DRC and it's people will continue to hang on after more bad governments. For those interested in Africa, this is a worthwhile book.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Pseudo-academic history with many flaws, February 19, 2006

By	Clement Piet (Duggingen, Switzerland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Touted as "the first book to give a complete history of the Congo", Edgerton's Troubled Heart of Africa leaves much to be desired.
The book starts promising enough, providing interesting facts on Congo's pre-colonial history. Soon, however, Edgerton gets carried away by the boys' book tales of 19th century white explorers cutting their way across the jungle and along the Congo river. In a book of hardly 240 pages that purports to give a complete history of the Congo, endless pages are devoted to the biographies of these early adventurers (Stanley's mistress gets a full biographical treatment AND a picture in the small photo section, although she never set foot in the Congo and is utterly irrelevant to its history).
Edgerton writes well enough, but his book basically recounts - often quite uncritically - facts and - preferably - spectacular stories picked up left and right from a selection of mostly second-hand literature. No archival sources were consulted. What is really annoying is Edgerton's habit to generalize on the basis of relatively weakly documented specific facts and cases. This seems particularly disturbing for a scholar teaching in psychiatry and anthropology. The chapter dealing with King Leopold II's Congo Free State offers plenty of examples of what I would term sensationalist pseudo-science. First of all there is not the slightest attempt to understand the motivations of Leopold II, who was no doubt an extremely stubborn, devious and selfish man, but who basically did what he did because he had the burning ambition to bestow on his little kingdom the status of a great power. In Edgerton's narrow view Leopold II is nothing more than a brutal tyrant exclusively interested in amassing private wealth; and that's that.
There is also a very careless use of numbers: at one point an estimated population of 50 million Congolese around 1875 drops to barely 15 million by 1890 (p. 124), but only 30 pages on (p. 156) we learn of a population of some 20 million around 1880, dropping to 6 million in 1908. Precise figures are of course impossible to come by, but uncritically quoting a variety of impossible figures is a serious matter in this context: the author does imply at different stages that the dramatic drop in population was the sole work of Leopold II's henchmen's brutality and murderous misbehaviour. While nobody will deny that the Congo Free State was appalingly brutal and responsible for inhuman suffering, it is obvious that the less than thousand Europeans who were stationed in the Congo by the end of the 19th century (most of them near the coast and river) cannot possibly have committed a genocide on the suggested scale even if they had planned to (which was, of course, not the case). No doubt countless thousands of Congolese died under terrible conditions directly because of the intervention of Free State officials (or, more often: representatives from the commercial concession-holders), but the real tragedy in terms of population decline was caused by deadly diseases carried by the Europeans and spread throughout the vast territory by the sudden and dramatic increase in mobility along the Congo river. The greed and cruelty exercised by quite a few of the Free State officials is undeniable. But it is not enough to simply (over)state the facts, a really serious book should also try to look for context and explanations.
The infamous case of the cut hands is a point in case. Congolese forced labourers who did not collect the prescribed quantity of rubber from the forests supposedly had their right hand cut off routinely by Free State officials as reprisal - this is another story that Edgerton uncritically blows out of proportion. Let's be clear: the practice did exist and is documented (also photographically). But there is no evidence that this hideous crime was practised "en masse", and certainly not, as a rule, on living labourers (that would in any case have been truly counter-productive: cutting of the hands of rubber collectors who did not meet their quota was not exactly going to help them meet the quota at the time of the next harvest...). The documented cases - appaling as they are - are of hands cut off from dead bodies of labourers who were shot for deserting forced labour and running away. The hands were cut off and collected as proof of the exact number of bullets that had been used by the officials in question, as their ammunition was rationed by the State... This is all quite dreadful and deserving of genuine indignation, but I believe that it is actually much more effective to place such episodes, as serenely as possible, in their proper context rather than time and again overstating them.
The chapters dealing - rather percursory - with the Belgian Congo (1908-1960) and independence are somewhat better and provide a lot of interesting detail. But even so there is, throughout the book, hardly any attempt at serious analysis, at delving deeper into causes and effects. So, in the end, we learn surprisingly little about why happened what happened and what it has meant and means for the Congolese population.
All in all, a disappointing book that certainly is NOT "a complete history of the Congo".

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Easy read...not a good research book, February 20, 2006

By	Xiao-li Pan "shirl195" (Wayne, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

as far as history books go, this was fairly interesting. but if youre looking for something more comprehensive of congolese history,look elsewhere. although gripping, the book focuses more on small details of congolese history rather than the giant players. ie skimmed over leopold II, went on a 40 page tangent of black presbyterian missionaries in the Congo...goes off on a LOT of tangents. Brings up cannibalistic practices at least 15 times throughout the course of the book. parts get a little redundant. over all easy read, though not a book to base your reserach paper on.