The Historian's Heart of Darkness - Reading Conrad's Masterpiece as Social and Cultural History

Fiction has power to portray historical truth. This book presents Joseph Conrad''s Heart of Darkness to students and general readers as an insightful guide to the history of Europe and Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.The phrase "heart of darkness" has become a term commonly used to conjure an ominous sense of hidden or deeply rooted evil. How did these words become so evocative? The answer lies in the richness and acute insight of Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad''s story based on his 1890 journey on the Congo River. Conrad''s novella illustrates many crucial themes of European and world history through the last two centuries: civilization; exploration; colonialism and imperialism; race and conflict based on race; trade and globalization; commercial exploitation; and the impact of changing technology, especially for communication and transport. Heart of Darkness deserves to be studied today for its value as social and cultural his