How I Found Livingstone

I liked it for the history, not sure about its entertainment value for the non history buff.

Absolutely excellent. The writing is quite excellent and the story the same. It is an adventure story worth reading

Very interesting true life storey of great historical importance. A must for history buffs. This detailled account of the story behind Dr Livingstone, I presume as spoken by Stanley brings to life the journeys taken by reporters of yesteryear.

Sir Stanleys account of his trek through east Africa in the late 1860s has the potential to be both historically relevant and a real-life adventure story. He accurately records the travels over more than a year and notes both successes and failures, weather, terrain, peoples met, battles fought, and all sorts of administration problems a troop lead can encounter. Having siad that, this is not an illustrated book (despite the words in the title). I dont know if the printed copy contains drawings, photos, maps etc. but none of that shows up in the Kindle version and the story suffers greatly for that. In trying to locate some of the places identified in the book with any of the online mapping tools was practically impossible as place names have been significantly changed in the intervening 140+ years. This seriously degrades the book and cost 2 stars to the rating.

While the value of this book for historical research is unquestionable, I found the account to be often somewhat tedious to slog through. Stanley must have felt the same way on many a grueling days march. Parts of the book were quite interesting, particularly to me those portions dealing with Stanleys meeting with and association with David Livingstone. I listened to the Audible Audio unabridged version of this book and found the narration to be good. The printed book might be a better choice for the casual reader as one could skim over less interesting portions of the book more easily and any maps contained therein might be of some help. The average armchair adventure reader might prefer to check out Tim Jeals Stanley, a book I highly recommend.

If you enjoy history and the early days of the exploration of Africa, this book is for you!

Though no longer the sensational best-seller it was at the time it was published, the book remains well-worth reading. I was particularly impressed by the authors determination and ability to overcome the most formidable obstacles. As Stanley himself put it, “where the civilized white is found, a difficulty must vanish. What a contrast with the present, when almost every time the armed forces of Western nations try to do something in the so-called Third World they are defeated and expelled

History of a great man! Opened up so much of Africa so many years ago, when people hardly knew anything about most of the continent.

An interesting account for those who like a first-hand, historical perspective. Stanleys writing is a little verbose compared to todays but, all-in-all, quite entertaining.

This is a really interesting book worthy of your reading, and very informative. I really like reading about missionaries from early times in history and what all they went through on little or nothing.