General

Country Map, Reise Know How
Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo

Double sided, indexed road map on durable, waterproof paper, dividing the region covered into east and west sections with a generous overlap. The map combines clear road and tourist detail with relief.

Scale: 1:2M
Copyright: 2007

This is the account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, King Leopold II of Belgium, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the portrait of those who fought him: a brave handful of missionaries, travellers, and idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust. Hochschild brings this story alive with the wit and skill of a Barbara Tuchman. Like her, he knows that history often provides a far richer cast of characters than any novelist could invent. Chief among them is a young British shipping agent who went on to lead the international crusade against Leopold. Another hero of this taleended his life on a London gallows. Two courageous Americans risked much to bring evidence of the Congo atrocities to the outside world. Sailing into the middle of the story was a young Congo River steamboat officer named Joseph Conrad. This book brands the tragedy of the Congo--too long forgotten--onto the conscience of the West.

HEART OF DARKNESS: with the Congo Diary, Joseph Conrad

A masterpiece of twentieth-century writing, Heart of Darkness (1902) exposes the tenuous fabric that holds "civilization" together and the brutal horror at the center of European colonialism. Conrad's crowning achievement recounts Marlow's physical and psychological journey deep into the heart of the Belgian Congo in search of the mysterious trader Kurtz. Originally published in 1902.

Tayler set out to re-create Henry M. Stanley's journey down the Congo. This is his richly descriptive account of the arduous and enlightening experence. Travelling in a dugout canoe, Tayler and his guide encounter intense heat and torrential rains, corrupt officials and soldiers demanding bribes, rats, mosquitoes, and breathtaking natural beauty. Going far beyond the boundaries of conventional adventure-travel writing, this is an honest and politically sophisticated depiction of today's Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), a country brought by the despotic leader Mobuto to economic and social ruin.

EAST ALONG THE EQUATOR: A Journey Up the Congo and into Zaire, Helen Winternitz

In this mix of political journalism and travel writing, Helen Winternitz and fellow journalist Timothy Phelps witness what few Westerners have: life in the ecologically rich but financially impoverished American-backed dictatorship of Zaire, the former Belgian Congo. Originally published in 1987.