Is Leopold II Top 10 Douche In History?

[!@#$%Vectors!@#]

I'm currently reading King Leopolds Ghost. I'm not even a hundred pages in and im already ranking Leo as one of the most deplorable human beings of all time. To people who know about him what are your opinions on him?


I'll give him one thing. He was really intelligent. So capapble of outsmarting most of Europe and the United States.

[gigantes]

i assume you mean leopold II of belgium, not leopold II, holy roman emperor...?

anyway i know very little about him. he certainly sounds like an ass, but then again, wasn't he only going a little further than the other european nations in general? i.e., pretty much like most financial institutions and free marketers in general-- if you can take shortcuts without penalty and thereby amass more profit, you tend to take it. human rights are for others to worry about.

very few if any of those countries really gave a shit about the natives IMO. it was mostly a choice between "we're going to exploit them, but pretend to improve their lives, which ultimately will be ruinous for them" vs. "we're going to exploit them and that's that."