EXPLORING AFRICA

An anachronistic, dry account of European explorations of Africa that exhibits little sympathy for what native people endured, and little grasp of how such ventures were often physical and cultural massacres. This illustrated entry in the Voyages of Discovery series opens with a few pages on pre-European Africa, mentioning the rise of the Nok people and Bantu-speaking people. Among early explorers were the Phoenicians, Arab traders, and Christian missionaries. In the 1400s, the Portuguese became involved, trying to find trade routes to India. The slave trade brought visitors from other European countries to Africa's shores, in search of the source of the Nile and the legendary city of Timbuktu. All this contributed to the parcelization of the African continent—except for Ethiopia and Liberia—into European colonies by 1900. The myopic view Martell takes leads to abundant facts about European explorers but not about the havoc they left in their wakes. What's more, the voices of Africans and others are categorized in mainly violent terms, not as justifiably reactive. (maps, diagrams, chronology, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 9-13)