Persist. The book grew on me. First tried to read it in 2015 – it sounded all made up. Oral testimony of Stanley’s first descent of the Congo dated to 01 February 1877 “at two in the afternoon”?
Succeeded in 2023 after first appreciating Olivia Manning’s forgotten account of the Emin Pasha ‘rescue’ – and also the general background provided by Pakenham.
Van Reybrouck has a very detailed commentary on his sources – it is at the back of the book, but should be read first.
The account of Congo post WWII to Mobutu is riveting. Details of musicians allow tracks to be located on Spotify.
Post Mobutu – beyond harrowing. The translator could not face taking much care with the gruesome details in Chapter 12. “The second Congo War” officially ended in 2003. It was not over in 2010, or in 2023.
Then the stories of beer and music. The head of Heineken in Congo in 2005 became the international CEO. Also a great insight into developing Congo-China relationships from 1978 to 2008. The book is a travelogue as well as a history, with insights from interviews with Congolese people, from children to warlords.
Flaws:
No photos – Van Reybrouck says he is too respectful of photography as an art form to appropriate anyone’s work. He gives some internet references, many of which no longer work.
The maps are poor – You can use google maps to some degree, but it takes a lot of time to follow the narrative, given the need to find maps elsewhere.
Badly made book – printed in the USA on cheap paper that is becoming yellow and foxed, and with an inferior binding for this ‘first edition’.
Where the author relies on quotations from publications originally in English, the translator has not used the original source, but has apparently re-translated from the Dutch. ( )

It has been the privilege of a lifetime to have read this book. I did not rush through it; i took my time to digest, the material, understand how it explained where this country-my country-is today.
The History course we get from school barely scratches the surface and it highly depend on how well motivated that particular teacher is, this book goes much much deeper so it was like i was discovering my country's history for the first time.
So, thank you Mr David for such amazing work. I hope this book inspires us to be better Congolese than what we've been so far. ( )

In “Congo: een Geschiedenis” (2010) (in English: Congo: the Epic History of a People) Belgian historian and writer David van Reybrouck grippingly describes in some 600 pages how Congo, now called the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was raped by first King Leopold of Belgium personally, then by the Belgian state and, after independence, by a variety of local politicians and war lords. It is an incredible history, of opportunism by the Belgians and later by the western world, led by the Americans, during the Cold War. Of naivety, incompetence and mismanagement in the process of granting the country its independence in 1960, which in a matter of weeks (!!!) led to massive mutiny in the army, secession of almost half of the country, and international military intervention to protect westerners after attacks on some foreign residents – and how their sudden flight led to a country without any administrative skills, because almost none of the Congolese had been formally trained. And of subsequent rise of cruel autocrats like Mobutu, who, in his personal enrichment, was by every comparison far worse than Leopold and the Belgians, and later Kabila father and son, who opportunistically did everything to stay in control for the same reasons, despite their sheer incompetence in leadership. All of this within the larger context of the scramble for Africa, and for Congolese mining commodities, initially by European powers, more recently by the African neighbours of Congo, especially Rwanda and Uganda, and as the latest player, China.
I thought I was rather well versed in contemporary history, but I learned a lot about a part of the world that does not normally receive a lot of attention, reading this book. Which reads as a page turner, actually. ( )

Livre remarquable. Découverte de l'histoire du Congo et de ses tragédies. Découverte des gens vivants dans cet immense pays, ballotés par une histoire terrible et abominable manipulé, orchestré par l'appât du gain immédiat des grands trust économiques, l'appât du pouvoir pour accéder à la richesse immédiate des potentats locaux, les manipulations des esprits créant de toute pièce des rivalités tribales, abandonnés par la lâcheté des pays occidentaux. C'est remarquablement écrit, l'analyse est pertinente et lucide sans partie pris avec beaucoup d'empathie pour les gens qui ont souffert et continue de souffrir dans ce théâtre des horreurs qui révèlent tout ce que le capitalisme, le libéralisme fleurant sans vergogne avec le totalitarisme, la dictature peut engendrer de chaos. Une triste histoire qui n'est pas terminée malheureusement.

"L'histoire est un plat abominable préparé avec les meilleurs ingrédients" p364 ( )

Esta obra traza de manera magistral la trayectoria de una de las naciones más devastadas, adoptando un enfoque profundamente humano, con el fin de devolverle la historia de la nación a su pueblo. Van Reybrouck va más allá del relato del comercio de esclavos y del marfil, del colonialismo belga y de la inestable independencia, y nos ofrece la perspectiva íntima de los congoleses comunes atrapados en la turbulenta historia de su nación. Congo recorre el país desde la prehistoria, los primeros cazadores de esclavos, el viaje de Stanley, enviado por Leopoldo II, hasta la descolonización, la llegada de Mobutu -seguido de Kabila- y la implantación de una importante comunidad china.