Excerpt:
]]>The Congo experience provides numerous lessons for our time... I read Leopold’s Ghost at the same time that J.K. Rowling launched a three-year campaign to stop orphanage tourism. There is an oversupply of orphanage tourists and a shortage of orphans. Children are being sold or stolen into orphanages to sate the pressure from orphanage volunteers. While their intentions are far more noble than the Congo’s ruthless ruler, Hoschild’s brilliant book reminds us all that global philanthropy can sometimes be far different from what it appears.