"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

The White Nile (Alan Moorehead, 1983)

(307 pages)

The author makes all this come to life - I enjoyed this every bit as much as my initial read about 20 years ago. 

The book focuses on events along the upper Nile in the mid-19th century.  Many famous names are involved here, starting with Burton and Speke.  Later comes David Livingstone (biography here), Henry Morton Stanley (biography here), Samuel and Elizabeth Baker (story here), Charles Gordon (and the fall of Khartoum to the Mahdi); even Herbert Kitchener and Winston Churchill show up toward the end of the story (Omdurman, etc.)

Amazing that the interior of Africa remain largely unmapped well into the 19th century.  The search for the source of the Nile dated back to Herodotus and beyond.  These Victorian explorers finally solved the puzzle.

East-central Africa grievously affected by Arab slave traders in these days; at this time slavery was being outlawed in Britain and, eventually, the US; but the slave trade had a big impact upon the explorers. Sad stories of the Zanzibar slave markets.

Some effort to convert the natives to Christianity, but the main players seem much more driven by the urge to explore.

An interesting angle:  indirectly this is a story about Britain in the middle of the 19th century - at the peak of its powers - as in India (per discussions here) and elsewhere, not necessarily strategic or even intentional in where it ended up - but high-impact wherever it went in those days.  Many who spent years in foreign outposts ended up unable to stay away.

Britain's influence, or interference, of course not necessarily benign for the natives.

I really like this book, and stories about this topic in general.

Monday, February 19, 2018

The Discovery of France - A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War (Graham Robb, 2007)

(358 pages)

Book club selection (via me; session held 25 February 2018).

Originally read this eight years ago, the summary from back then remains on point.

The book is one of the highest value that I've run across in terms of generating ideas per unit.  It does give lots of interesting - and new - information specific to France.  Moreso, perhaps unintentionally, it gives a glimpse into daily lives of many people in the immediately pre-modern world - most of which would apply in France, or elsewhere. This part utterly fascinates.  Difficult to imagine a non-homogenized world - and so recent.  Where accumulating, and "getting ahead," wasn't even on the agenda for so many.

Also not the author's point - but it drives home how wealthy society has become. 

So much of what I believe or assume on various topics (not only France) is just wrong - this book is a useful reminder!

PJ reprised the cassoulet recipe . . . except it was even better this time around.