Summary

In 1879, King Leopold II of Belgium launched an ambitious plan to plunder Africa’s resources. The key to cracking open the continent, or so he thought, was its elephants—if only he could train them. And so he commissioned the charismatic Irish adventurer Frederick Carter to ship four tamed Asian elephants from India to the East African coast, where they were marched inland towards Congo. The ultimate aim was to establish a training school for African elephants.

Following in the footsteps of the four elephants, Roberts pieces together the story of this long-forgotten expedition, in travels that take her to Belgium, Iraq, India, Tanzania, and Congo. The storytelling brings to life a compelling cast of historic characters and modern voices, from ivory dealers to Catholic nuns, set against rich descriptions of the landscapes travelled. In an original weave of past and present, she digs deep into historic records revealing an extraordinary—and enduring—story of colonial greed, hypocrisy, and folly.


Review
I'm conflicted about this one. This is a point in history that I've been diving into ever since I read "King Leopold's Ghost" and as far as telling this history, this is a good companion to that book. The story was a fascinating look at the egosim and pride of colonizers, which ultimately became their downfall.

It was a tragic look into a niche part of this history in Leopold's attempt to start a training school for Elephants in order to futher colonize Africa. I learned a lot.

Where I think this book fell short was in the travelogue aspect. Roberts clearly did an incredible amount of research into this book and was very clearly careful and intentional about discussing the imperialist impact of this history. However, there was a strange irony in Roberts, a British jouranlist, retracing an imperialist journey through Africa. Her interactions with the land and the people around her seemed surface level at times and a missed opportunity to take the focus away from the colonizers and onto the effects of their colonization.

I would recommend this book if you're interested in the topic, but I highly recommend that you read "King Leopold's Ghost" first.



What I learned

• King Leopold was respsonsible for the deaths of an estimated 10 million Africans over the period of 23 years.

• In the 1958 World Fair, Belgium hosted what they called the "Kongorama", a literal human zoo, to showcase Belgium's "civilizing" impact on the Congo. This zoo held 600 Congolese men, women, and children captive. This harkened back to 1897 when King Leopold started this human zoo which attracted 1 in 4 Belgiums to come visit.

• In the construction of the Central Railway Line in Africa, Germans used slave labor, resulting in the deaths of 100 men each month. During its peak of construction, over 20,000 Africans worked on the railway line.

• Elephants will not abandon their sick or dying family members, communicate through an infrasonic system that humans can't hear, can recognize themselves in a mirror (few animals can do this), have a better memory than humans, and even have a burial ritual for the deceased.

• At the beginning of the 19th century, there were 26 million elephants in Africa. Now, there's between 4-500,000.

"Sven Lindqvist remarked: 'You already know enough. So do I. It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions.'"