King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild

(I reviewed this a few weeks ago but apparently my review is lost in cyberspace.)

This was a tremendous book--absolutely required reading. King Leopold of Belguim was a fascinatingly diabolical character and his exploitation of the Congo was beyond belief. And, as if all of that isn't bad enough, as the story is winding down and things seem to normalize, we find out that the CIA killed the first democratically-elected leader of the Congo. Unbelieveable. This well-written tale is much stranger--and more interesting--than fiction.