Adam Hochschild
Adam Hochschild
Full Name and Common Aliases
Adam Hochschild is a British-American author and historian known for his work on human rights, politics, and social justice.
Birth and Death Dates
Born in 1942, Adam Hochschild's exact birthdate is not publicly available. He remains active as an author to this day.
Nationality and Profession(s)
Adam Hochschild holds dual British and American citizenship. His professional background includes work as a journalist, author, and professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley.
Early Life and Background
Growing up in London during World War II, Adam Hochschild developed an early interest in politics and social justice. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied philosophy, politics, and economics. After completing his studies, Hochschild worked as a journalist for several years before moving to the United States.
Major Accomplishments
Adam Hochschild's work has been widely recognized for its excellence in historical scholarship and storytelling. His book "King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa" won the Dukers Award for Best Book of 1998 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History.
Notable Works or Actions
Hochschild has written numerous books on historical and social justice topics. Some of his notable works include:
"The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World", which explores the life of diplomat Richard Holbrooke
"Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939", a historical account of American involvement in the Spanish Civil War
* "Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight for Abolition", which examines the history of the abolitionist movement
Through his writing, Hochschild has brought attention to crucial human rights issues and shed light on lesser-known aspects of world history.
Impact and Legacy
Adam Hochschild's work has had a significant impact on public discourse around politics and social justice. His books have been translated into numerous languages, making him an influential voice in the global conversation about human rights and democracy. As a professor of history, he has inspired generations of scholars and students to explore these critical topics.
Why They Are Widely Quoted or Remembered
Adam Hochschild is widely quoted and remembered for his incisive analysis of historical events and their ongoing impact on contemporary society. His commitment to social justice and human rights has made him a respected authority in the field, and his ability to engage readers with compelling narratives has earned him numerous awards and accolades.
Quotes by Adam Hochschild
No international court can ever substitute for a working national justice system. Or for a society at peace.
In Berlin, after she took part in a failed general strike and uprising, her petite figure with its large hat and parasol still considered a threat by right-wingers, Rosa Luxemburg was beaten and shot by army officers and her body dumped in a canal.
In the Congo, as in Russia, mass murder had a momentum of its own. Power is tempting, and in a sense no power is greater than the ability to take someone’s life. Once under way, mass killing is hard to stop; it becomes a kind of sport, like hunting.
Chekhov, knowing the weight of his own country’s history of serfdom, spoke of how Russians must squeeze the slave out of themselves, drop by drop. Russia’s continuing troubles show how long and hard a task this is.
His frustrations are concealed, his raw lust for colonies moderated by the knowledge that he must depend on subterfuge and flattery.
For several years now, Kipling had been sprinkling his prose and poetry with anti-German barbs. He believed this war would do “untold good” for his beloved British tommies, preparing them for the inevitable clash with Germany. The Boer War, said a character in a story he wrote at the time, was “a first-class dress-parade for Armageddon.
Whenever Mosley was heckled at one of his rallies, he stopped speaking and searchlights focused on the heckler as jackbooted men beat him and then threw him out of the hall.
The exclusive focus of the reform movement on Leopold’s Congo seems even more illogical if you reckon mass murder by the percentage of the population killed. By these standards, the toll was even worse among the Hereros in German South West Africa, today’s Namibia. The killing there was masked by no smokescreen of talk about philanthropy. It was genocide, pure and simple, starkly announced in advance.
Colonialism was also justified by an elaborate ideology, embodied in everything from Kipling’s poetry and Stanley’s lectures to sermons and books about the shapes of skulls, lazy natives, and the genius of European civilization. And.
Just as Europeans would be long obsessed with African cannibalism, so Africans imagined Europeans practicing the same thing.