The following bibliography compiles essential secondary sources for researching the history of the Congo Free State and the Congo Reform Movement. This list includes books, academic journal articles, and newspaper pieces that provide in-depth analyses and contextual understanding of the atrocities committed under King Leopold II’s administration and the campaign to expose and end the abuses.

Books and Articles

Ascherson, N. The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second and the Congo. London: Granta,
1999.

Benedetto, R. Presbyterian Reformers in Central Africa: A Documentary Account of the
American Presbyterian Congo Mission and the Human Rights Struggle in the Congo, 1890-1918. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997

Burroughs, R. African Testimony in the Movement for Congo Reform: The Burden of Proof. London; New York: Routledge, 2019.

Burroughs, R. Travel Writing and Atrocities: Eyewitness Accounts of Colonialism in the Congo, Angola, and the Putumayo. New York: Routledge, 2011.

Burroughs, R. ‘The Travelling Apologist: May French Sheldon in the Congo Free State (1903-4).’ Studies in Travel Writing, Vol.14, No.2 (June 2010), 135-157.

Casement, R. The Eyes of Another Race: Roger Casement’s Congo Report and 1903 Diary. Edited by O’Siochain, S. & O’Sullivan, M. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2003.

Clay, D. ‘Transnational Dimensions of the Congo Reform Movement, 1904-1908.’ English Studies in Africa, Vol.59 (2016), 18-28.

Clay, D. ‘“David vs Goliath”: The Congo Free State Propaganda War, 1890–1909,’ The International History Review, Vol.43, Issue 3 (2021), 457-474.

Clay, D. ‘“A Clash of Titans”: Big Business and the Congo Reform Movement,’ History: The Journal of the Historical Association, Vol.107, Issue 374 (2022), 97-120.

Clay, D. ‘The “Open Sore of America”: Race and the American Congo Reform Movement, 1885–1908,’ Journal of American Studies, Vol.58, Issue 2 (May 2024), 248-274.

Cline, C. A. E.D. Morel, 1873-1924: The Strategies of Protest. Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1980.

Cline, C. A. ‘E.D. Morel and the Crusade against the Foreign Office,’ The Journal of Modern History, Vol.39, No.2 (1997), 126-137.

Cline, C. A. ‘The Church and the Movement for Congo Reform,’ Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, Vol.32, No.1 (1963), 46-56.

Cocks, F. S. E. D. Morel: The Man and his Work. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1920.

Cookey, S. J. S. Britain and the Congo Question. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd, 1968.

Demoor, M. ‘When the King Becomes your Personal Enemy: W. T. Stead, King Leopold II, and the Congo Free State,’ Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, Vol.19, No.16 (23 April 2013).

Dunn, K. C. Imagining the Congo: The International Relations of Identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Dworkin, I. Congo Love Song: African American Culture and the Crisis of the Colonial State. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2017.

Edgerton, R. B. The Troubled Heart of Africa: A History of the Congo. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002.

Emerson, B. Leopold II of the Belgians: King of Colonialism. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979.

Ewans, M. European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and its Aftermath. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Gondola, C.D. The History of Congo. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 2002

Grant, K. A Civilised Savagery: Britain and the New Slaveries in Africa, 1884-1926. New York: Routledge, 2005.

Grant, K. ‘Christian Critics of Empire: Missionaries, Lantern Lectures, and the Congo Reform Campaign in Britain,’ The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol.29, No.2 (2001), 27-58.

Hawkins, H. ‘Mark Twain’s Involvement with the Congo Reform Movement: A Fury of Generous Indignation,’ The New England Quarterly, Vol.51, No.2 (1978), 147-175.

Hochschild, A. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. London: Pan Macmillan, 1998.

Jacobsen, O. Daniel J. Danielsen and the Congo: Missionary Campaigns and Atrocity Photographs. Brethren Activists and Historians Network, 2014.

Laderman, C. ‘The Invasion of the United States by an Englishman: E. D. Morel and the Anglo-American Intervention in the Congo,’ In Mulligan, W. and Bric, M. (eds). A Global History of Anti-slavery Politics in the Nineteenth Century. Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2013.

Lösing, F. A Crisis of Whiteness in the Heart of Darkness: Racism and the Congo Reform Movement. Transcript Verlag, 2020.

Louis, W. R. ‘Roger Casement and the Congo,’ The Journal of African History, Vol.5 (1964), 99-120.

Louis, W. R. ‘The Stokes Affair and the Origins of the Anti-Congo Campaign, 1895-1896,’ Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, Vol. 43, No.2 (January 1965), 572-584.

Louis, W. R. ‘The Triumph of the Congo Reform Movement, 1905-1908,’ In Butler, J. et al (eds.). Boston University Papers on Africa: Transition in Politics Vol. 2. Boston, Boston University Press, 1966.

Mitchell, D. The Politics of Dissent: A Biography of E.D. Morel. Bristol: Silverwood Books, 2014.

Nworah, K. D. ‘The Liverpool “Sect” and British West African Policy, 1895-1915,’ African Affairs, Vol.70, No.281 (October 1971), 349-364.

Nzongola-Ntalaja, G. The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History. London: Zed Books, 2002.

Osborne Jr., J. B. ‘Wilfred G. Thesiger, Sir Edward Grey, and the British Campaign to Reform the Congo, 1905-9,’ The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan 1999), 59-80.

Pavlakis, D. British Humanitarianism and the Congo Reform Movement, 1896-1913. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015.

Pavlakis, D. ‘The Development of British Overseas Humanitarianism and the Congo Reform Campaign,’ Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Vol.11, No.1 (Spring 2010).

Pavlakis, D. ‘To Reform an Imagined Congo: Novelists Tackle the Congo Rubber Scandals,’ English Studies in Africa, Issue 1 (2016), 29-39.

Peffer, P. ‘Snap of the Whip/Crossroads of Shame: Flogging, Photography, and the Representation of Atrocity in the Congo Reform Campaign,’ Visual Anthropology Review, Vol.21, No.1 (Spring 2008), 55-77.

Phipps, W. E. William Sheppard: Congo’s African American Livingstone. Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2002.

Roes, A. (2010) ‘Towards a History of Mass Violence in the Etat Indépendant du Congo, 1885-1908,’ South African Historical Journal, 62 (4). 634-670.Shaloff, S. Reform in Leopold’s Congo. Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1970.

Slade, R. King Leopold’s Congo: Aspects of the Development of Race Relations in the Congo Independent State. London: Oxford University press, 1962.

Slade, R. ‘English Missionaries and the Beginning of the Anti-Congolese Campaign in England,’ Revue Belge de Philologie d’Histoire, Vol. 33, No. 1 (1955), 37-73.

Sliwinski, S. ‘The Childhood of Human Rights: The Kodak on the Congo,’ Journal of Visual Culture, Vol.5, No.3 (January 2006), 333-363.

Twomey, C. ‘Severed Hands: Authenticating Atrocity in the Congo, 1903-14.’ In Batchen, G., Gidley, M., Miller, N.K., and Prosser, J. Picturing Atrocity: Photography in Crisis. London: Raktion Books, 2012.

Van Hove, J. Congoism: Congo Discourses in the United States from 1800 to the Present. Transcript Verlag: Bielefeld, 2018.

Vanthemsche, G. Belgium and the Congo, 1885-1908. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Weisbord, R. G. ‘The King, the Cardinal, and the Pope: Leopold II’s Genocide in the Congo and the Vatican,’ Journal of Genocide Research, Vol.5, No.1 (2003), 35-45.

Unpublished Dissertations

Echenberg, M. ‘The British Attitude toward the Congo Question, with particular reference to the work of E. D. Morel and the CRA, 1903-1913.’ MA dissertation, McGill University, 1964.

Forth, A. “The Politics of Philanthropy: the Congo Terror Regime and the British Public Sphere, 1884-1914.” MA dissertation, Queen’s University Kingston, 2006.

Gertzel, C. ‘John Holt: A British Merchant in West Africa in the Era of Imperialism.’ PhD dissertation, University of Oxford, 1959.

McStallworth, P. ‘The United States and the Congo Question, 1884-1914.’ PhD dissertation, Ohio State University, 1954.

Nworah, K. D. ‘Humanitarian Pressure Groups and British Attitudes to West Africa, 18951914.’ Unpublished PhD thesis, King’s College London, 1966.

Osborne Jr., J. B. ‘Sir Edward Grey, the British Consular Staff, and the Congo Reform Campaign.’ PhD dissertation, Rutgers University, 1971.

Wuliger, R. ‘The Idea of Economic Imperialism with Special Reference to the Life and Work of E. D. Morel.’ PhD Thesis, University of London, 1953.