Feeling terrible

King Leopold II’s conquest of the Congo revitalized a worldwide humanitarian movement, paternalistic predecessor to the human rights revolution of our own time. European and US reformers were outraged at the enormity of the violation: Mass murders and mass starvation in the name of harvesting rubber went against every law of decency and humanity. But why, Adam Hochschild asks in King Leopold’s Ghost, did exploited bodies in the Congo create such mobilization? Why less empathy for atrocities happening at this time in the Philippines, Australia, and Namibia? Moralistic fervor finds safe targets.