The Life and African Exploration of David Livingstone

The Life and African Exploration of David Livingstone

Author: David Livingstone

Publisher: Cooper Square Press

Published: 2002-05-28

Total Pages: 656

ISBN-13: 1461661129

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During his travels as a missionary, David Livingstone beheld many previously unknown wonders of the African interior. He put Victoria Falls and Lake Ngami on the map, and was the first white man to cross the African continent. Diaries, reports and letters are combined to create a wonderful narration of Livingstone's travels in a widely unknown continent. Included in this harrowing tale is Livingstone's narrow escape from a lion's wrath, his negotiations with an African chief, and his account of the Portuguese slave traders brutally punishing slaves after their attempt to escape. The Life and African Explorations of Livingstone also reveals Livingstone's deeply-rooted Christian beliefs and the strength he took from them, strength that allowed him to live and thrive amid the hardships of equatorial Africa.


Hearts of Darkness

Hearts of Darkness

Author: Frank McLynn

Publisher:

Published: 2020-10-22

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13:

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'Fascinating. A compelling and intriguing volume.' Associated Press Scarcely over a hundred years ago, Africa was still the Dark Continent to Europeans-its geography and peoples largely unknown. The continent was Nature's last great fortress, made seemingly impregnable by disease, hostile tribes, dangerous animals, extremes of climate and an inhospitable terrain. However, the era of discovery eventually dawned: Africa was being opened up. Through the combination of individual endeavour and technological breakthrough, a handful of explorers began exploring and mapping Africa. Livingstone, Stanley, Burton, Speke, Baker, and others-these extraordinary characters risked their lives to uncover the mysteries of the Dark Continent. Frank McLynn proposes a thematic treatment of the subject; opening with an historical survey of the achievements and scope of the explorers, detailing the legendary search of the source of the Nile, the traversing of the Congo and Niger, and the recovery of Livingstone. The ensuing chapters deal then with different aspects of exploration over the period. The highly-praised Hearts of Darkness brings us the reality behind the myths and legends of England's first steps into the Dark Continent. Frank McLynn is a British author, biographer, historian and journalist. He is noted for critically acclaimed biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte, Robert Louis Stevenson, Carl Jung, Richard Francis Burton and Henry Morton Stanley. He is also the author of Fitzroy Maclean, Villa and Zapata and Bipolar, a novel about Roald Amundsen, published by Sharpe Books. Praise for Frank McLynn: 'A remarkable opus.' ALA Booklist 'An eye-opening safari into the history and psychobiography of Africa exploration.' Kirkus Reviews 'In sturdy, confident prose McLynn takes an intriguing tack by offering a thematic, comparative account of African exploration during the Victorian era.' Publishers Weekly 'A readable, well-written and worthwhile work.' Seattle Times 'A smoothly written account of African exploration during the Victorian era. [McLynn] presents fascinating derails on everything from the eating habits of the black mamba to the ravages of the tsetse fly on the European travellers.' Tampa Tribune and Times


Land of Tears

Land of Tears

Author: Robert Harms

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2019-12-03

Total Pages: 544

ISBN-13: 1541699661

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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.


Out of Our Minds

Out of Our Minds

Author: Johannes Fabian

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2000-06-13

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0520221230

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'Out of Our Minds' shows explorers and ethnographers in Africa during colonial expansion were far from rational - often meeting their hosts in extraordinary states influenced by opiates, alcohol, sex, fever, fatigue, and violence.


Livingstone and the Exploration of Central Africa

Livingstone and the Exploration of Central Africa

Author: Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston

Publisher: Legare Street Press

Published: 2021-09-10

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 9781015322417

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.


African-American Exploration in West Africa

African-American Exploration in West Africa

Author: James Fairhead

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2003-11-13

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 9780253110046

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In the 1860s, as America waged civil war, several thousand African Americans sought greater freedom by emigrating to the fledgling nation of Liberia. While some argued that the new black republic represented disposal rather than emancipation, a few intrepid men set out to explore their African home. African-American Exploration in West Africa collects the travel diaries of James L. Sims, George L. Seymour, and Benjamin J. K. Anderson, who explored the territory that is now Liberia and Guinea between 1858 and 1874. These remarkable diaries reveal the wealth and beauty of Africa in striking descriptions of its geography, people, flora, and fauna. The dangers of the journeys surface, too -- Seymour was attacked and later died of his wounds, and his companion, Levin Ash, was captured and sold into slavery again. Challenging the notion that there were no black explorers in Africa, these diaries provide unique perspectives on 19th-century Liberian life and life in the interior of the continent before it was radically changed by European colonialism.


Funerals in Africa

Funerals in Africa

Author: Michael Jindra

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2011-09-01

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0857452061

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Across Africa, funerals and events remembering the dead have become larger and even more numerous over the years. Whereas in the West death is normally a private and family affair, in Africa funerals are often the central life cycle event, unparalleled in cost and importance, for which families harness vast amounts of resources to host lavish events for multitudes of people with ramifications well beyond the event. Though officials may try to regulate them, the popularity of these events often makes such efforts fruitless, and the elites themselves spend tremendously on funerals. This volume brings together scholars who have conducted research on funerary events across sub-Saharan Africa. The contributions offer an in-depth understanding of the broad changes and underlying causes in African societies over the years, such as changes in religious beliefs, social structure, urbanization, and technological changes and health.


At the Mercy of the River

At the Mercy of the River

Author: Peter Stark

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13:

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Even in this age of extreme sports and made-for-TV survival games, there still exist places on earth where the most intrepid among us can plunge into truly unknown territory. The acclaimed adventure writer Peter Stark had waited all his life for just such an opportunity. But when he was invited to Africa to join a small expedition kayaking down Mozambique’s Lugenda River, he balked. The 750-kilometer rivercourse was largely uncharted–dotted with rapids, waterfalls, and home to deadly crocodiles and hippos; two of his four travel companions were not skilled kayakers; and he had a family to think of, (not to mention that at forty-eight, he himself was feeling a bit old for the life untamed). Suppressing inner doubts and driven by that most human of urges–to see what lies beyond the next bend–Stark signed on for the adventure of a lifetime. At the Mercy of the River is Stark’s harrowing, insightful account of this venture into the unknown. “Why,” he muses between capsizes in the Lugenda’s croc-infested waters, “are humans compelled to explore?” The expedition’s five distinct–and sometimes clashing–personalities provide individual answers to that question. Equipped with only the most rudimentary comforts and lacking the customary explorer’s gun, the party encounters breathtaking natural splendor, rich wildlife, and villages little affected by modern life. Ever aware that they are following in the metaphorical footsteps of great explorers of the past–Vasco da Gama, Mungo Park, Ibn Battuta, David Livingstone, and other men of adventure who bridged Africa and the West–Stark shares these explorers’ stories with us, finding a common thread linking his experience with theirs. Using their accounts, his travails on the Lugenda River, and the insights of wilderness philosophers such as Henry David Thoreau, Stark attempts to understand the very nature of “exploration” while pondering the question, Where will we go when our wilderness vanishes? At the Mercy of the River is at turns inspiring, heart-thumping, and even amusing. But most of all, it is a riveting adventure story for a time when adventure is in danger of losing its meaning.


Heterosexual Africa?

Heterosexual Africa?

Author: Marc Epprecht

Publisher: Ohio University Press

Published: 2008-08-15

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 0821442988

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Heterosexual Africa? The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS builds from Marc Epprecht’s previous book, Hungochani (which focuses explicitly on same-sex desire in southern Africa), to explore the historical processes by which a singular, heterosexual identity for Africa was constructed—by anthropologists, ethnopsychologists, colonial officials, African elites, and most recently, health care workers seeking to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This is an eloquently written, accessible book, based on a rich and diverse range of sources, that will find enthusiastic audiences in classrooms and in the general public. Epprecht argues that Africans, just like people all over the world, have always had a range of sexualities and sexual identities. Over the course of the last two centuries, however, African societies south of the Sahara have come to be viewed as singularly heterosexual. Epprecht carefully traces the many routes by which this singularity, this heteronormativity, became a dominant culture. In telling a fascinating story that will surely generate lively debate, Epprecht makes his project speak to a range of literatures—queer theory, the new imperial history, African social history, queer and women’s studies, and biomedical literature on the HIV/AIDS pandemic. He does this with a light enough hand that his story is not bogged down by endless references to particular debates. Heterosexual Africa? aims to understand an enduring stereotype about Africa and Africans. It asks how Africa came to be defined as a “homosexual-free zone” during the colonial era, and how this idea not only survived the transition to independence but flourished under conditions of globalization and early panicky responses to HIV/AIDS.