AFRICA EXPLORED: Europeans in the Dark Continent, 1769-1889

by Christopher Hibbert ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 19, 1983

Currently, there exists no other narrative history ""of the principal explorations of Africa undertaken by Europeans from the days of James Bruce and Mungo Park to those of Livingstone and Stanley, Cameron, Schweinfurth and Junker."" To quote further from Hibbert's faintly, redolently archaic prose: ""It is based largely on the diaries, letters and published works of the explorers themselves and is intended to convey an impression of how Africa and Africans appeared to [them] and how both land and people were represented to their readers."" Stylistically, the book is quite successful--a seamless blend of condensation, paraphrase, and direct quotes. It also contains a separate map at the start of each chapter or episode, indicating all the major places named (in addition to maps of Africa as a whole, and West Africa, at the beginning). There is a sense of direct contact, then, with minor as well as major figures. But there are also serious limitations and outright failings. Generally, there is a want of framing and shaping--very little about the political and economic reasons for exploration; almost nothing about the specific geographic focuses (e.g., the Riddle of the Niger) or--most crucially--what each exploration added to the growing knowledge. (The kind of information imparted, too, by the conventional-type map--also absent here-showing the various explorers' routes.) In selecting from the accounts, Hibbert seems to stress the explorers' hardships--hunger and thirst, disease, heat, hostile or perfidious or greedy native rulers--and the curious, often repellent, sights and customs they encountered. With a Bruce in warring Ethiopia, this may be fair enough--and it certainly does convey the impressions of a great many explorers, however fair or unfair to the inhabitants. But Hibbert does not do justice, for instance, to the very attractive, unjustly neglected figure of Heinrich Barth, the German scholar-explorer who not only covered vast areas of north and central Africa but made friends: garbed as an Arab and with sufficient learning to pass as a Muslim, he had many more intimate, nourishing contacts than we get wind of here. (Oddly, we don't even hear how he escaped the unfortunate Laing's fate in Timbuktu.) With a controversial figure like Stanley, there is neither the benefit of later scholarship nor of rounded portraiture. Not an actual history of African exploration, in sum, nor the equal of Alan Moorehead or Richard Hall--but with some potential as a smooth compilation of many experiences.

Pub Date: Sept. 19, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1983

Categories: NONFICTION