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Best regards, Andrew Stewart - - - Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/ Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: February 26, 2020 at 11:04:45 AM EST > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-Africa]: Rich on Harms, 'Land of Tears: The > Exploration and Exploitation of Equatorial Africa' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Robert W. Harms. Land of Tears: The Exploration and Exploitation of > Equatorial Africa. New York Basic Books, 2019. 544 pp. $35.00 > (cloth), ISBN 978-0-465-02863-4. > > Reviewed by Jeremy M. Rich (Marywood University) > Published on H-Africa (February, 2020) > Commissioned by David D. Hurlbut > > Jeremy Rich on _Land of Tears: The Exploration and Exploitation of > Equatorial Africa_ > > Since Adam Hochschild's _King Leopold's Ghost_ was published two > decades ago, the brutality of the European colonization of Central > Africa has again returned to the attention of Anglophone readers. > However, popular understandings tend to present Leopold II's Congo > Free State as a morality tale of cruel rulers without considering the > economic, environmental, and comparative aspects to central African > colonization. _Land of Tears_, by renowned historian Robert Harms, > offers a sweeping review of the history of conquest from the 1860s > until the Belgian government purchased the Congo Free State from the > Belgian king Leopold II. By covering and comparing both the French > and Leopoldian invasions, this study undermines the misconceived idea > that the Independent State of the Congo was somehow an aberration of > colonial excess. Older French efforts to cast Pierre Savorgnan de > Brazza as a peace-loving, cultured hero compared to the boorish and > cruel Henry Stanley tended to ignore the common features of > imperialism. French colonization borrowed the Leopoldian model of > concessionary companies and the rapacious exploitation of Africans. > At the same time, Harms acknowledges how African leaders such as > Tippu Tip could greatly influence colonial politics. > > Harms's main subject lies in political narrative history, even as he > does occasionally draw upon his seminal engagement with environmental > factors dating back to the early 1980s. The destruction of elephants > drove African traders and eventually colonial officials further and > further into the Central African interior. David Livingstone, Henry > Stanley, and Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza's careers drive the first > half of the study. Their competition for establishing control over > the Congo River and the interior of Central Africa is well-worn > territory for scholars of European colonization. The political > narratives of Leopoldian and French expansion Harms depicts do not > stray far from much older scholarship on these topics. > > Yet he effectively uses short cases to make the larger story of > industrialization and colonial invasion accessible to readers. For > example, an extended discussion of Connecticut factories producing > ivory products demonstrates how violent struggles over trade in > Central Africa connected to mass production in Europe and North > America. When reviewing Stanley's career, Harms uses a series of > scenes complete with individual dates and locations. Harms delineates > responses by African leaders and communities to European expansion, > whether to resist colonial rule or to accept European dominance. This > method also strikes against overly vague generalizations about Africa > by providing specific geographic locations and individual moments. > > The second half of the book considers the formation of colonies after > Brazza and Stanley between the mid-1880s and World War I. Not > surprisingly, there is more consideration of the concessionary era in > the Independent State of the Congo than in neighboring > French-controlled territory. Harms's knowledge of the Anglo-Belgian > India Rubber Company (ABIR) concession is particularly valuable to > examining the vicious impact of Leopoldian rule. Though familiar > figures such as the French journalist Félicien Challaye are > referenced in discussing French territories, Harms is clearly on > surer ground in the Independent State of the Congo. > > There is no doubt Harms has mastered the lengthy archival and > published record on European colonization in Central Africa in the > late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Francophone > specialists are not going to find a great deal of new insights, > especially given that Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch and other scholars > writing in French have mined explorer and colonial records since the > 1960s. While Harms clearly has a grasp of current research on the > Congo Reform movement and European actors in colonization, it is > striking how little recent work is cited on African participants in > either Leopoldian Congo or French Equatorial Africa. Does this speak > more to the lack of new scholarship or Harms's lack of engagement > with more contemporary research, especially by African scholars? > Could less commonly used sources--such as the Disciples of Christ and > other missionary records for the Leopoldian period employed > effectively by Nancy Rose Hunt--have brought in new perspectives > largely overlooked in the dominant archival record? Hunt's use of > oral sources also indicates the ambivalence and obscurity of violence > in the Leopoldian era that is at odds with the matter-of-fact > approach by Harms. One of the more frustrating aspects of this book > is the lack of individual African cases in the Leopoldian period, > beyond the usual cast of Swahili-speaking traders defeated by > European forces. For example, Manyema communities constituted the > military might of Tippu Tip's successors in eastern Democratic > Republic of Congo in the 1870s and 1880s. Yet the internal political > dynamics of this important group are dimly apparent here. > > In the end, who is the intended audience for this book? Specialists > of colonial conquest in Central Africa already will know this > material well. There are few major methodological advances here to > inspire future research. At the same time, Harms's lucid overview is > an excellent introduction to the colonization of Central Africa to > those unfamiliar with the subject, particularly as Basic Books is a > respected trade publisher rather than an academic press. To Harms's > credit, the book assumes no knowledge of the subject or literature. > Its length and structure probably make the book a somewhat difficult > text in its entirety for undergraduate classes, although the wealth > of freely accessible primary sources cited here could make _Land of > Tears _an effective textbook. On the other hand, this would be a > valuable work to include in graduate classes on African colonization. > It also will serve as an exemplary reference work on the European > colonization of Central Africa. > > Citation: Jeremy M. Rich. Review of Harms, Robert W., _Land of Tears: > The Exploration and Exploitation of Equatorial Africa_. H-Africa, > H-Net Reviews. February, 2020. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=54841 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
