With an introduction by award-winning novelist Barbara Kingsolver In the late nineteenth century, when the great powers in Europe were tearing Africa apart and seizing ownership of land for themselves, King Leopold of Belgium took hold of the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. In his devastatingly barbarous colonization of this area, Leopold stole its rubber and ivory, pummelled its people and set up a ruthless regime that would reduce the population by half. . While he did all this, he carefully constructed an image of himself as a deeply feeling humanitarian. Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize in 1999, King Leopold’s Ghost is the true and haunting account of this man’s brutal regime and its lasting effect on a ruined nation. It is also the inspiring and deeply moving account of a handful of missionaries and other idealists who travelled to Africa and unwittingly found themselves in the middle of a gruesome holocaust. Instead of turning away, these brave few chose to stand up against Leopold. Adam Hochschild brings life to this largely untold story and, crucially, casts blame on those responsible for this atrocity.

Originally published in 1963. Between 1945 and 1951, Belgium faced a crisis in political leadership when its ruling monarch, King Leopold III, was accused of violating the Belgian Constitution during World War II. The "question" at hand refers to the uncertainty over whether King Leopold III could return to Belgium as king. Leopold III and the Belgian Royal Question documents the history of this political crisis, culminating with the abdication of King Leopold and the assumption of the crown by Baudouin, Leopold's son.

Belgium in the First World War--the first country invaded, the longest occupied, and when the war finally ended, the first forgotten. In 1914, Belgium was home to a large American colony which included representatives of American companies, artists, writers and diplomats with the American Legation. After the invasion, American journalists and adventurers flocked there to follow the action; military restrictions on travel were less stringent than in England or France. As the most industrialized country in Europe, Belgium depended upon trade and food imports to support its economy. The war isolated Belgium and wholesale starvation was imminent by the fall of 1914. Herbert Hoover and his Commission for Relief in Belgium raised funds to purchase and import food to sustain Belgium and, eventually, Occupied France as well. Idealistic American volunteers (including some Rhodes scholars) supervised food distribution in the occupation zone. Along the Western Front in Belgium, hundreds of Americans served (illegally) in the British and Canadian armies. This book tells the story of the German invasion, occupation and retreat from the perspective of Americans who were there.

Excerpt from Across America With the King of the Belgians I must confess that two months ago I had not the slightest intention of writing this book. I thought I had satisfied my need for expression in newspaper articles and lectures. But as the days go by, souvenirs come back and more mature im pressions are born again. The splendor Of that journey still haunts my memory, like that shepherd in the Provencal legend who, after having looked too long at the sun, kept some of its light in his eyes. My ears still have the echo of a great applause. I shall endeavor therefore to bring back some image of all this by noting day by day from the very beginning the impressions and Observations made on His Majesty's trip through the great American Republic. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

In August 1914, the German Army invaded the neutral nation of Belgium, violating a treaty that the German chancellor dismissed as a "scrap of paper." The invaders terrorized the Belgians, shooting thousands of civilians and looting and burning scores of towns, including Louvain, which housed the country's preeminent university. The Rape of Belgium recalls the bloodshed and destruction of the 1914 invasion, and the outrage it inspired abroad. Yet Larry Zuckerman does not stop there, and takes us on a harrowing journey over the next fifty months, vividly documenting Germany's occupation of Belgium. The occupiers plundered the country, looting its rich supply of natural resources; deporting Belgians en masse to Germany and northern France as forced laborers; and jailing thousands on contrived charges, including the failure to inform on family or neighbors. Despite the duration of the siege and the destruction left in its wake, in considering Belgium, neither the Allies nor the history books focused on the occupation, and instead cast their attention almost wholly on the invasion. Now, The Rape of Belgium draws on a little-known story to remind us of the horrors of war. Further, Zuckerman shows why the Allies refrained from punishing the Germans for the occupation and controversially suggests that had the victors followed through, Europe's reaction to the rise of Nazi Germany might have taken a very different course.