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'Masterful.' - The Economist The Congo-Ocean railroad stands as one of the deadliest construction projects in history. It was completed in 1934, when Equatorial Africa was a French colony. African workers were conscripted at gunpoint, separated from their families and subjected to hellish conditions as they hacked their way through dense tropical foliage; excavated by hand thousands of tonnes of earth in order to lay down track; blasted their way through rock to construct tunnels; or risked their lives building bridges over otherwise impassable rivers. In the process, they suffered disease, malnutrition and rampant physical abuse, likely resulting in at least 20,000 deaths. Drawing on exhaustive research in French and Congolese archives, a chilling documentary record and eye-opening photographic evidence, J. P. Daughton tells the epic story of the Congo-Ocean railroad, and in doing so reveals the human costs and contradictions of modern empire.
A collection of original essays by leading scholars in the field,
In God's Empire examines the complex ways in which the spread of
Christianity by French men and women shaped local communities,
French national prowess, and global politics in the two centuries
following the French Revolution. More than a story of religious
proselytism, missionary activity was an essential feature of French
contact and interaction with local populations. In many parts of
the world, missionaries were the first French men and women to work
and live among indigenous societies. For all the celebration of
France's secular "civilizing mission," it was more often than not
religious workers who actually fulfilled the daily tasks of running
schools, hospitals, and orphanages. While their work was often tied
to small villages, missionaries' interactions had geopolitical
implications. Focusing on many regions - from the Ottoman Empire
and North America to Indochina and the Pacific Ocean - this book
explores how France used missionaries' long connections with local
communities as a means of political influence and justification for
colonial expansion.
Between 1880 and 1914, tens of thousands of men and women left
France for distant religious missions, driven by the desire to
spread the word of Jesus Christ, combat Satan, and convert the
world's pagans to Catholicism. But they were not the only ones with
eyes fixed on foreign shores. Just as the Catholic missionary
movement reached its apex, the young, staunchly secular Third
Republic launched the most aggressive campaign of colonial
expansion in French history. Missionaries and republicans abroad
knew they had much to gain from working together, but their starkly
different motivations regularly led them to view one another with
resentment, distrust, and even fear.
Between 1880 and 1914, tens of thousands of men and women left
France for distant religious missions, driven by the desire to
spread the word of Jesus Christ, combat Satan, and convert the
world's pagans to Catholicism. But they were not the only ones with
eyes fixed on foreign shores. Just as the Catholic missionary
movement reached its apex, the young, staunchly secular Third
Republic launched the most aggressive campaign of colonial
expansion in French history. Missionaries and republicans abroad
knew they had much to gain from working together, but their starkly
different motivations regularly led them to view one another with
resentment, distrust, and even fear.
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