King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa episode artwork

EPISODE · Nov 26, 2025 · 25 MIN

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

from Read Between The Lines · host Adam Hochschild

Behind the mask of a great humanitarian, King Leopold II of Belgium concealed a monstrous secret. He seized the vast Congo territory as his personal property, unleashing a reign of terror to harvest its rubber and ivory. This hidden holocaust, driven by pure greed, cost millions of lives. King Leopold’s Ghost is the gripping, forgotten story of this atrocity and the unlikely band of heroes—missionaries, journalists, and a shipping clerk—who defied a king and sparked one of the world's first great human rights movements.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Nov 26, 2025

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King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

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