How I Found Livingstone

My favorite nonfiction read of 2013. It is indelibly imprinted on my mind. First person narrative of firsthand accounts from the British Colonial Period are absolutely fascinating.

I thought it was dated but that would be expected but I enjoyed it. I thought the choice of words at times was interesting.

If you like reading original historical source material, then you will like this book. One gets the feeling of what it was like in a much different time in East Africa during early European contact with the interior.

Ive have read other books about this trek into darkest Africa plus the movies. This version ranks right up there with the best. More than just a story of the search is tells us a lot of the mind set of the Victorian Male and the craze the whole era had for exploring in general. Great read.

Lively details that Moorhead and Jeal glide over, giving you the feeling that you are there. Stanley writes well, and clearly was an indominable traveler.

Good reading.

The book is the exerts of Sir Henry Stanley, a journalist who was presented with the task of finding Dr. Livingstone, an explorer who had been missing for two years and presumed dead. Stanleys travels were documented by his newspaper, to much fanfare. Stanley had no clue about central Africa, what to pack, what to expect, and ends up facing what youd expect in Africa: harsh conditions, diseases, natives who dont appreciate him being on their land, and jungles that he was no equipped for. It is a tale of lively tale of struggles and intrigue, a very good read.

This is a really boring book. The author, convinced of his own white superiority goes on and on making racist remarks. For example, when he was trying to build a bridge, he remarks, Be sure it was made quickly, for where the civilized white is found, a difficulty must vanish. At another point, he remarks Every pound of meat, and every three spoonfuls of musk or porridge I ate in Africa contained at least ten grains of sand. Ferajji was considerably exercised at a threat I made to him that on arrival at Zanzibar, I would get my gret English doctor there to open my stomach and count every grain of sand found in it, for each grain of which Ferraji should be charged one dollar. Imagine an explorer, even a racist one, complaining about sand in his food. Boy were those Victorian explorers used to luxury at the expense of native slaves. Ironically, at the same time he imagines himself to be a liberal, goes on and on about what wrongs his workers (whom he wouldnt call slaves, as he explains, in all his magnanimity, but wouldnt mind flogging or chaining) were idiots and ungrateful. The author shows the lack of respect for nature shown by most Europeans who were actually hunters and imagined themselves to be botanists and zoologists. For example, he writes: After seeing the work properly commenced, I sat down on a condemned canoe to amuse myself with the hippopotami by peppering their thick skulls with my No. 12 smooth bore. I found this statement quite disturbing. He misses out the entire point. Not a single map in the book. No mention of distances. No introduction to the origins and customs of the different tribes. I have read other travelogues of the time period, and while I have found all of them racial, many of them had excellent descriptions of the landscape, geographical features, distances, and anthropological customs. This book, unfortunately lacked all of them. Edit 1: A few years after the review, I happened to read more about this man in Hochschilds book Leopolds Ghost. Stanley grew up in Wales, and moved to America where he lied about his Welsh origin. He fought in both sides of the American Civil war, and was a deserter. Throughout his life, he was given to lying about his achievements and blowing them up way beyond proportion. He made most of his money inventing fantastic tales about his travels. During his travels, he himself indulged in a fair bit of tyrrany, and single handedly enabled King Leopold (of Belgium) set up a murderous regime in the Congo that was responsible for the death of about 10 million Congolesse.

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

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.