... war is certainly the most general and most productive source of slavery; and the desolations of war often produce famine, in which case a freeman becomes a slave, to avoid a greater calamity. -Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, Mungo Park (1799)
On May 22, 1795, Scottish explorer Mungo Park left England for Gambia, where he spent nearly two years travelling from the mouth of the Gambia River to Silla in current Mali. During this period, Park was robbed several times, captured by Moors, fell ill, and barely survived. He wrote Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa-Performed in the years 1795, 1796 & 1797, with an Account of a Subsequent Mission to that Country in 1805, in which he theorized the Niger and Congo merged to become the same river. This travel classic was a contemporary bestseller with long-lasting influence on readers and great writers such as Joseph Conrad, Ernest Hemingway, William Wordsworth, and Herman Melville.
In 1805, Park departed for a second expedition, during which he was killed after having successfully traveled about two-thirds of the way down the Niger.
Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa is a must-read for anyone interested in travel literature and the history of West Africa.
Sprache
Produkt-Hinweis
Broschur/Paperback
Klebebindung
Maße
Höhe: 216 mm
Breite: 140 mm
Dicke: 34 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-1-64679-292-4 (9781646792924)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
Mungo Park was a Scottish explorer of West Africa. He was born in 1771 and died in 1806. After exploring the upper Niger River in 1796, he wrote a popular and influential travel book called Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa. In it, he thought that the Niger and Congo rivers merged to become the same river, but it was later shown that they are different rivers. Mungo Park was born in Selkirkshire, Scotland, at Foulshiels on the Yarrow Water, close to Selkirk, on a tenant farm that his father rented from the Duke of Buccleuch. Before he went to Selkirk grammar school, he learned at home. At age 14, he went to work for Thomas Anderson, a doctor in Selkirk, as an apprentice. During his apprenticeship, Park became friends with Anderson's son Alexander and met his future wife, Anderson's daughter Allison. Moby-Dick, which was written by Herman Melville in 1851, talks about Mungo Park. In Water Music, written by T. C. Boyle in 1981, Mungo Park is one of the two main characters. In his song "Monsters You Made," which is on the 2020 album Twice as Tall, Burna Boy talks about Park.
