{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20260417T232332Z","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465028632?tag=bookfrontier-20","asin":"0465028632","authors":["Robert Harms"],"book_id":"9780465028634","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/land-of-tears-0465028632","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780465028634.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","description":"A prizewinning historian's epic account of the scramble to control equatorial Africa In just three decades at the end of the nineteenth century, the heart of Africa was utterly transformed. Virtually closed to outsiders for centuries, by the early 1900s the rainforest of the Congo River basin was one of the most brutally exploited places on earth. In Land of Tears , historian Robert Harms reconstructs the chaotic process by which this happened. Beginning in the 1870s, traders, explorers, and empire builders from Arabia, Europe, and America moved rapidly into the region, where they pioneered a deadly trade in ivory and rubber for Western markets and in enslaved labor for the Indian Ocean rim. Imperial conquest followed close behind. Ranging from remote African villages to European diplomatic meetings to Connecticut piano-key factories, Land of Tears reveals how equatorial Africa became fully, fatefully, and tragically enmeshed within our global world.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780465028634","publication_date":"20191203","publisher":"Basic Books","slug":"land-of-tears","subtitle":"The Exploration and Exploitation of Equatorial Africa","title":"Land of Tears"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"HIS001010","confidence_band":"high","label":"Central African History","score":0.8236,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS001040","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Southern African History","score":0.7885,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS001020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"East African History","score":0.7865,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"HIS001010","confidence_band":"high","label":"Central African History","score":0.8236,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS001040","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Southern African History","score":0.7885,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS001020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"East African History","score":0.7865,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"BIO023000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Adventurers & Explorers","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"BUS023000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Economic History","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"HIS001000","confidence_band":"high","label":"African History","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"HIS001010","confidence_band":"high","label":"Central African History","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"POL045000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Colonialism & Its Aftermath","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Central African History","score":0.8236,"slug":"central-african-history"},{"label":"Southern African History","score":0.7885,"slug":"southern-african-history"},{"label":"East African History","score":0.7865,"slug":"east-african-history"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers who enjoy Central African History","Good for fans of History","Good for readers who enjoy Central African History and Southern African History."],"related_lists":[{"intro":"","slug":"shelf-his001040-africa-south-general","title":"Africa South General Books","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/lists/shelf-his001040-africa-south-general"}],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Adam Hochschild"],"book_id":"9780358212508","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780358212508.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":12.5495,"title":"King Leopold's Ghost","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780358212508"},{"authors":["Jason K. 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