“The horror! The horror!” Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ - the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's ‘Apocalypse Now’ - is one of the most celebrated literary works of all time, though now increasingly contentious. Based on Conrad’s own terrible journey into the Congo in 1890, and the horrors he beheld there while it was under the sway of King Leopold of Belgium’s monstrous regime, the novella, published in 1899, delves into man’s capacity for evil - the primal beast lurking beneath the surface of all humans - and has long stood as the preeminent cultural representation of European colonialism. It tells the story of Mr Kurtz, a great ivory trader who has disappeared deep into the African interior, and appears to have lost his mind, having penetrated some terrifying, ancient truth. Initially, Conrad’s disturbing account was viewed as the ultimate attack on imperialism, though aspects of the novella have also invited accusations of racism and imperialism, in part owed to Conrad’s own sympathy for Empire. So what is the truth at the heart of 'Heart of Darkness'? And who was Joseph Conrad himself? What horrors did he behold to have inspired such a poignant account of the nightmares within and without…? Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss Joseph Conrad, ‘Heart of Darkness’ and the real life events that inspired it, and the long term reverberations of the novella in culture and literary criticism today. EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restishistory Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Editor: Jack Meek Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Full Episode
Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Hi, everybody. Dominic Sandbrook from The Rest Is History here.
Now, as you can probably tell from the noise of the pool, I am joined by a friend of the show, Anthony Scaramucci, who is on his island, surrounded by the luxurious trappings of wealth. He is, of course, the host of The Rest Is Politics US. And Anthony and I have a very special announcement. on Sunday the 30th of March.
Anthony is over in the UK and we have decided to do a live show together at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London. Haven't we, Anthony?
We have, you know, and thank God I'm not British because the Brits actually admire my American attitude about life. OK, but in any event, OK, it'd be the first time on stage with Dominic. I am very excited. We're going to be doing a show on U.S. political history called The Rest is Assassinations.
From Lincoln to JFK, but Dominic and I both know on the 30th of March, 2025, it's the 44th anniversary of the attempted assassination on Ronald Reagan. So there's not only assassinations here, which are terrible, but there's an attempted assassination, several of them, Dominic, right, throughout U.S. history.
And so we're excited to go through this and what the impacts were on American history and global history.
Right. And there's so many great stories. So, obviously, JFK, you and I disagree about JFK because I, of course, think it was Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone and you think differently. But there are other stories. You mentioned attempted assassinations. So, for example, FDR. FDR was almost shot before his inauguration in 1933.
And that's an attempted assassination that really could have changed the course of history because no FDR. Does the United States still enter the Second World War? Does the story of the 20th century play out completely differently? So... There is so much to talk about, and I'm really, really looking forward to doing it. What are you looking forward to most, Anthony?
Well, I mean, all of that, but I want to delve into a little bit of the Secret Service and some of the men in that service. Clint Hill is still alive. He was riding alongside of Jackie and John Kennedy on the 22nd of November of 1963. And we'll talk about what he saw. We'll talk about what other events. agents have written about recently.
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