FINALIST FOR THE CUNDILL PRIZE FOR HISTORY‘Not only deserves the description “epic”, in its true sense, but the term “masterpiece” as well’ IndependentThis gripping epic tells the story of one of the world’s most critical failed nation-states: the Democratic Republic of Congo. Interweaving his own family’s history with the voices of a diverse range of individuals – charismatic dictators, feuding warlords, child soldiers, and many in the African diaspora of Europe and China – Van Reybrouck offers a deeply humane approach to political history, focusing squarely on the Congolese perspective and returning a nation’s history to its people.
Оглавление
David Reybrouck van. Congo
Copyright
From the reviews of Congo:
Dedication
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1. NEW SPIRITS. Central Africa Draws the Attention of East and West. 1870–1885
CHAPTER 2 “DIABOLICAL FILTH” Congo Under Leopold II. 1885–1908
CHAPTER 3. THE BELGIANS SET US FREE. The Early Years of the Colonial Regime. 1908–1921
CHAPTER 4. IN THE STRANGLEHOLD OF FEAR. Growing Unrest and Mutual Suspicion in Peacetime. 1921–1940
CHAPTER 5. THE RED HOUR OF THE KICKOFF. The War and the Deceptive Calm That Followed. 1940–1955
CHAPTER 6. SOON TO BE OURS. A Belated Decolonization, a Sudden Independence. 1955–1960
CHAPTER 7. A THURSDAY IN JUNE
CHAPTER 8. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE THRONE. The Turbulent Years of the First Republic. 1960–1965
CHAPTER 9. THE ELECTRIC YEARS. Mobutu Gets Down to Business. 1965–1975
CHAPTER 10. TOUJOURS SERVIR. A Marshal’s Madness. 1975–1990
CHAPTER 11. THE DEATH THROES. Democratic Opposition and Military Confrontation. 1990–1997
CHAPTER 12. COMPASSION, WHAT IS THAT? The Great War of Africa. 1997–2002
CHAPTER 13. LA BIÈRE ET LA PRIÈRE (SUDS AND SANCTITY) New Players in a Wasted Land. 2002–2006
CHAPTER 14. THE RECESS. Hope and Despair in a Newborn Democracy. 2006–2010
CHAPTER 15. WWW.COM
SOURCES. GENERAL
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
NOTES. INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
REFERENCES
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
About the Author
Also by David Van Reybrouck
About the Publisher
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‘[Congo] possesses the economy and deftness of the best short stories and avoids the bloat of your average history book … The research, the devotion, the inventiveness in Van Reybrouck’s writing are a gift to everyone, not just fans of African history. This book not only deserves the description “epic”, in its true sense, but the term “masterpiece” as well.’
Independent
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WHERE DOES THE HISTORY BEGIN? A long way out to sea, a long way from the coast, even a long time before Nkasi was born. A tendentious urge exists to let the history of Congo begin with the arrival of Stanley in 1870, as though the inhabitants of Central Africa wandered sadly before that time through an eternal, immutable present and had to wait for a white man to come through and free them from the wolf trap of prehistoric listlessness. Central Africa, it is true, did gain major historical momentum between 1870 and 1885, but that absolutely does not mean that the inhabitants before that were suspended in a solidified state of nature. They were not living fossils.
Central Africa was a region without writing, but not without a history. Hundreds, yea thousands of years of human history preceded the arrival of the Europeans. If a heart of darkness existed back then, it was sooner to be found in the ignorance with which white explorers viewed the area than in the area itself. Darkness, too, is in the eye of the beholder.
