Aminatta Forna
"Meticulously researched, vividly narrated, and devastatingly compelling, In the Forest of No Joy provides a significant contribution to the mounting evidence that lays bare the self-deceiving lie at the heart of Empire, that of the ‘civilizing mission.’ J.P. Daughton details the horrific abuse carried out by the colonial regime upon the African population during the construction of the Congo-Océan railroad, from forced labor to torture and murder, and finds evidence not just of African suffering, but also African resistance."
Foreign Affairs - Nicolas van de Walle
"Relying on journalistic accounts from the period and the excellent use of archival materials, [Daughton’s] book paints a vivid picture of colonialism in central Africa."
The New Yorker
"[An] unsparing history.... By highlighting individual stories, Daughton upends the Eurocentric narrative of the documents he studies, in which ‘white triumph would always discount African trauma.’"
Marcus Rediker
"Sailing with J.P. Daughton into the French empire’s heart of darkness is a visceral, haunting, and memorable experience. In the Forest of No Joy will stand alongside Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost as a chilling testament to the crimes of European ‘civilization.’"
The Economist
"Masterful.…what makes it so compelling is the divide it exposes between the often admirable intentions of colonial bureaucrats who did genuinely think they were lifting Africans out of poverty, and the grim reality that they enabled."
Edward Berenson
"In this tour de force of historical research, J.P. Daughton tells the horrifying story of the Congo-Océan railroad, a massive, ill-conceived construction project (1921-34) whose French overseers doomed some 20,000 African workers to die. This story, revealing as it does France’s imperial hubris and callous disregard of human suffering, should have been told a long time ago. But it has been buried by bureaucrats, overlooked by historians, and made invisible to those who chose not to see. We owe Daughton a great debt for bringing it to light and for masterfully adding a new chapter to the tragic history of Central Africa under European colonial rule."
John Merriman
"In his compelling study, J.P. Daughton evokes the murderous violence that accompanied the construction in the 1920s of a tortuous railroad in southern French Equatorial Africa, sadly representative of the French imperial project. Daughton presents a chilling analysis of French colonial attitudes toward indigenous peoples, while vividly relating the experiences of tens of thousands of ordinary Africans."
Adam Hochschild
"If such a shockingly large number of people had been worked to death building a railroad in Europe or the United States, it would be as notorious as the worst deeds of Hitler or Stalin. J.P. Daughton puts this little-known tragedy on the record in a searing, unforgettable, and necessary way."
Wall Street Journal - Tunku Varadarajan
"An unflinching book, often harrowing in its depiction of the depravity on display in French Equatorial Africa."
