I was done a great disservice.......

Hank2211 said:

Africa's a big and diverse continent, as you know Mr. 16 Gauge (why can't we get 16 gauge shells in Canada anymore? But that's for a different thread). Because of that diversity, and the fact that, unlike Europe for the last two thousand or more years, people weren't in constant (or much, if any) contact with people in other parts of Africa, the history of southern Africa is much different than the history of North Africa, or East Africa, or West Africa, etc. so I'm not sure there's really such a thing as a book on "African history", or at least, not a very good one.

Having made my (somewhat pedantic, I admit) point, there are good books on the history of different parts, and different periods. My son, on his first trip to Africa this summer, brought something called "South Africa: History in an Hour." I read it while waiting on the back of truck for him to find an animal he shot badly. Got through the whole thing before he got back. Well written and best of all, concise. It's available on Amazon as an E-book. Not even sure it's published in hard copy.

There are also great books published in the 18th and 19th centuries by the various Europeans who explored Africa. Most were there for their own reasons, but any of the books by Sir Richard Francis Burton on Africa also delved into the history, as well as the geography, and some of the more interesting practices of the locals.

As Stug mentioned, Selous did some interesting writing, and for a brief history of some of the then recent Zimbabwe history, "Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia", which is a history of the second Matebele rebellion (with lots of stuff about the first, and the causes of the second, is good. Lots of action too.

You mentioned you found Stanley's book "How I found Livingstone" to be somewhat dry. In it's day, it was a runaway bestseller, since everyone was looking for Dr. Livingstone, and most thought him dead. I can recommend "Through the Dark Continent" and "In Darkest Africa", both by Stanely. Neither is primarily a history book, but like all good Victorian writers, he likes to throw it at you from time to time.

Some of the best history surrounds the exploration for the source of the Nile. Burton's "First Footsteps in East Africa" is good (if misguided), as is Speke's "The Source of the Nile." Any of the books by the great writer Sir Harry Johnston about Africa are excellent, though in particular I would recommend "The Nile Quest". In a more recent vein, "The White Nile" and "The Blue Nile," both by Alan Moorehead, published in 1960 and 1962 respectively, are great reads and more traditional history in nature. If they don't get you interested in Africa, you should give up on life.

Lastly, don't forget the great historical novelists who wrote or write about Africa - Wilbur Smith being likely the best known. You can learn a lot of history while having great fun. In the same (but longer, if you can believe it), James Michener's "The Covenant" is well-researched while also being thoroughly entertaining.

I could go on, but I'm starting to bore myself . . .

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375 Ruger Fan said:

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

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375 Ruger Fan said:

Another book on my to-read list is:
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million--all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian. Heroic efforts to expose these crimes eventually led to the first great human rights movement of the twentieth century, in which everyone from Mark Twain to the Archbishop of Canterbury participated. King Leopold's Ghost is the haunting account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who fought Leopold: a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust. Adam Hochschild brings this largely untold story alive with the wit and skill of a Barbara Tuchman. Like her, he knows that history often provides a far richer cast of characters than any novelist could invent. Chief among them is Edmund Morel, a young British shipping agent who went on to lead the international crusade against Leopold. Another hero of this tale, the Irish patriot Roger Casement, ended his life on a London gallows. Two courageous black Americans, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard, risked much to bring evidence of the Congo atrocities to the outside world. Sailing into the middle of the story was a young Congo River steamboat officer named Joseph Conrad. And looming above them all, the duplicitous billionaire King Leopold II. With great power and compassion, King Leopold's Ghost will brand the tragedy of the Congo--too long forgotten--onto the conscience of the West.

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