Around the figure ofNostromo, Conrad spins a story about revolution, politics, an racial conflicts as complex as Nostromo, the man whose greatest enemy is himself. Heading the Gould Concession, the imperialistic silver mine, which runs the country's economy, is the somewhat idealistid Englishman Charles Gould, and his American financier, Holroyd, who sees the slave economy as a higher form of social Darwinism, "a pure form of Christianity." Opposing Gould is the cynical Frenchman, who claims to belive in nothing but "the truth of his sensations."