Stanley was the name he chose for himself after his mother was unable to determine who his father was. This pivotal moment would be the beginning of many coincidences that would shape the course of his life.

From Liverpool, he travels by ship to the United States, where he forgets his British origins and fights with the Southern Army during the Civil War, before becoming a journalist, possessed by a passion to discover the secrets of Africa, which has become the coveted treasure of all colonial powers.

As King Leopold II of Belgium searches for glory for his small kingdom, he finds it in the Congo, and Stanley, now a distinguished journalist, is his support.

Through some trickery, deception, and a lot of injustice and violence, the Congo becomes a Belgian colony, and the novel delves into the details of oppression, injustice, and the mechanisms by which the wealth of peoples is plundered under the guise of human liberation and the export of democracy.