The Last Expedition
Stanley's Fatal Journey Through the Congo
Published on 8. September 2005
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-0-7499-5063-7 (ISBN)
Description
A noble rescue mission descends into a nightmare of cruelty, starvation and cannibalism - bringing to a close the European exploration of Africa. Henry Morton Stanley - the man who found Dr Livingstone - undertook the greatest African expedition of the nineteenth century. The ostensible aim was to rescue Emin Pasha, last lieutenant of the murdered General Gordon and governor of southern Sudan. Instead of ten months, Stanley's trip took three years and cost the lives of thousands of people, as his column hacked its way through the Congo - the last great unexplored territory in Africa. Stanley's secret agenda was territorial expansion; and what is revealed so vividly in the accounts of those who accompanied him is the dark underside of both the man and the colonial impulse.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
800 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7499-5063-7 (9780749950637)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
New editions
Book
07/2007
Portrait
€38.56
Article is exhausted; no reprint
Persons
Daniel Liebowitz, M.D. is a clinical professor of Medicine Emeritus, Sanford University, and has travelled extensively in Africa. He is the author of The Physician And The Slave Trade (0716730987), and the author of numerous magazine articles on Africa, as well as science. He lives in Woodside, California. Charlie Pearson has been a professional writer for twenty five years, working largely in documentary film. His documentary work has been on PBS, ABC, The Discovery Channel, Disney Channel, and National Geographic Explorer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Goodnight Miss Ann which he wrote and associate produced. He lives in Mill Valley, California.
Content
A stark and brutal African adventure that combines the narrative power of Conrad's Heart of Darkness with an expose of the reality of imperialism Emin Pasha, loyal subordinate of the martyred General Gordon, and governor of Equatoria in the Southern Sudan, is cut off by the foces of the Madhist jihad. Henry Morton Stanley, of Livingston fame, is sent to rescue him and his thousands of Christian subjects. That's the official story, dressed in the same colors of altruism as King Leopold's appropriation of the Congo had been, and it is a lie! This is in fact a real-estate deal, and Stanley will need a company modelled on the East India Company that will control vast natural resources and 'protect' its native populations. Although the Sudan is in East Africa, Stanley decides to go in from the West, up along the Congo...the force, some 500 men, is armed to the teeth, but they have virtually no food. Porters and soldiers desert like flies. When they come upon a village the expedition requisitions food and canoes. If the natives protest of resist, they are killed. But in the nightmare conditions of the Congo, the veneer of civilization is stripped away to reveal the darkest impulses of colonialism.