16 research outputs found
How Does Institutional Change Coincide with Changes in the Quality of Life? An Exemplary Case Study
Possibilites d'industrialisation des Etats africains et malgache associés. III République démocratique du Congo. Volumes 2 et 3: Etude economique des projets et inventaire industriel = Possibilities of industrialization of the Associated African states and Malagasy. III Democratic Republic of Congo. Volumes 2 and 3: Economic study of projects and industrial inventory. 13.078/VIII/B/66-F
Possibilites d'industrialisation des Etats africains et malgache associés. IV Burundi, Rwanda et région Centre-orientale du Congo (Kinshasa) (région des Grands Lacs). Volume 1: Rapport = Possibilities of industrialization of the Associated African states and Malagasy. IV Burundi, Rwanda and the Central-Oriental region of Congo (Kinshasa) (Great Lakes region). Volume 1: Report. 13.079/VIII/B/66-F
Possibilites d'industrialisation des Etats africains et malgache associés. IV Burundi, Rwanda et région Centre-orientale du Congo (Kinshasa) (région des Grands Lacs). Volume 2 et 3: Etude economique des projets et inventaire industriel = Possibilities of industrialization of the Associated African states and Malagasy. IV Burundi, Rwanda and the Central-Oriental region of Congo (Kinshasa) (Great Lakes region). Volume 2 and 3: Economic study of projects and industrial inventory. 13.080/VIII/B/66-F
Possibilites d'industrialisation des Etats africains et malgache associés. III République démocratique du Congo. Volume 1: Rapport = Possibilities of industrialization of the Associated African states and Malagasy. III Democratic Republic of Congo. Volume 1: Report. 13.077/VIII/B/66-F
Towards a History of Mass Violence in the Etat Indépendant du Congo, 1885-1908
The present article provides an up-to-date scholarly introduction to mass violence in the Etat Indépendant du Congo (Congo Free State, EIC). Its aims are twofold: to offer a point of access to the extensive literature and historical debates on the subject, and to make the case for exchanging the currently prevalent top-down narrative, with its excessive focus on King Leopold's character and motives, for one which considers the EIC's culture of violence as a multicausal, broadly based and deeply engrained social phenomenon.
The argument is divided into five sections. Following a general outline of the EIC's violent system of administration, I discuss its social and demographic impact (and the controversy which surrounds it) to bring out the need for more regionally focused and context sensitive studies. The dispute surrounding demographics demonstrates that what is fundamentally at stake is the place the EIC's extreme violence should occupy in the history of European ‘modernity’. Since approaches which hinge on Leopoldian exceptionalism are particularly unhelpful in clarifying this issue, I pause to reflect on how such approaches came to dominate the distinct historiographical traditions which emerged in Belgium and abroad before moving on to a more detailed exploration of a selection of causes underlying the EIC's violent nature. While state actors remain in the limelight, I shift the focus from the state as a singular, normative agent, towards the existence of an extremely violent society in which various individuals and social groups within and outside of the state apparatus committed violent acts for multiple reasons. As this argument is pitched at a high level of abstraction, I conclude with a discussion of available source material with which it can be further refined and updated