J. P. Daughton
Autore di In the Forest of No Joy: The Congo-Océan Railroad and the Tragedy of French Colonialism
Opere di J. P. Daughton
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Nome canonico
- Daughton, J. P.
- Nome legale
- Daughton, James Patrick
- Sesso
- male
- Istruzione
- Amherst College (BA)
Cambridge University (MPhil)
University of California, Berkeley (PhD) - Attività lavorative
- historian
professor - Organizzazioni
- Stanford University (Assistant Professor of Modern European History)
Utenti
Recensioni
Premi e riconoscimenti
Statistiche
- Opere
- 3
- Utenti
- 76
- Popolarità
- #233,522
- Voto
- 3.6
- Recensioni
- 5
- ISBN
- 11
As to how this could have happened, there are never any great answers, but Daughton includes as factors the pervasive racism of the French administrative and construction staff, a long-term tradition of brute force to get things done in the colony, and how the inmates had basically taken over the asylum; there being no strong direction from the French central government that might have asked the hard questions. That the French governor of the colony, Raphael Antonetti, was a genius of misdirection, denial, and euphemism, in his efforts to see that the project continued forward one lethal mile after the other, might have been the special ingredient.
If I have questions, it's what did the higher French political leadership really think of this. Over the 1920s there was some falling out with the Belgian government, so perhaps there was the strategic element of not becoming dependent on the Belgian infrastructure. I also wonder about straight-up corruption as, for over a decade, this was a steady meal ticket for the company building the railroad, the Societe de Construction des Batignolles. Perhaps it's as simple that the average French voter didn't care, so long as relatively little of their taxes went to this boondoggle, as there was certainly no lack of press coverage of this ongoing outrage.
A tough read, but relevant if one wants to have a comparative sense of 20th-century officialdom at its worst.… (altro)