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How I Found Livingstone [Illustrated] Sir Henry M. Stanley The Travels, Adventures and Discoveries in Central Africa including four months residence with Dr. Livingstone.
CHAPTER. I. - INTRODUCTORY. MY INSTRUCTIONS TO FIND AND RELIEVE LIVINGSTONE.
On the sixteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine, I was in Madrid, fresh from the carnage at Valencia. At 10 A.M. Jacopo, at No.-- Calle de la Cruz, handed me a telegram: It read, "Come to Paris on important business." The telegram was from Mr. James Gordon Bennett, jun., the young manager of the `New York Herald.'
Down came my pictures from the walls of my apartments on the second floor; into my trunks went my books and souvenirs, my clothes were hastily collected, some half washed, some from the clothes-line half dry, and after a couple of hours of hasty hard work my portmanteaus were strapped up and labelled "Paris."
At 3 P.M. I was on my way, and being obliged to stop at Bayonne a few hours, did not arrive at Paris until the following night. I went straight to the `Grand Hotel,' and knocked at the door of Mr. Bennett's room.
"Come in," I heard a voice say. Entering, I found Mr. Bennett in bed. "Who are you?" he asked.
"My name is Stanley," I answered.
"Ah, yes! sit down; I have important business on hand for you."
After throwing over his shoulders his robe-de-chambre Mr. Bennett asked, "Where do you think Livingstone is?"
"I really do not know, sir."
"Do you think he is alive?"
"He may be, and he may not be," I answered.
"Well, I think he is alive, and that he can be found, and I am going to send you to find him."
"What!" said I, "do you really think I can find Dr Livingstone? Do you mean me to go to Central Africa?"
"Yes; I mean that you shall go, and find him wherever you may hear that he is, and to get what news you can of him, and perhaps" --delivering himself thoughtfully and deliberately--"the old man may be in want:--take enough with you to help him should he require it. Of course you will act according to your own plans, and do what you think best--BUT FIND LIVINGSTONE!"
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King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Adam Hochschild 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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Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa Jason Stearns The best account [of the conflict in the Congo] so far
.The task facing anyone who tries to tell this whole story is formidable, but Stearns by and large rises to it.” Adam Hochschild, New York Times Book Review [A] tour de force, though not for the squeamish.” Washington Post This is a serious book about the social and political forces behind one of the most violent clashes of modern timesas well as a damn good read.” Economist [P]erhaps the best account of the most recent conflict in the Congo.” Foreign Policy A serious, admirably balanced account of the crisis and the political and social forces behind it
perhaps the most accessible, meticulously researched, and comprehensive overview of the Congo crisis yet.” Financial Times |
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Congo Michael Crichton A 20th-century adventure that plunges the reader into the heart of Africa with three intrepid adventurers, in a desperate bid to find the fabulous diamonds of the lost city of Zinj. The author also wrote "Jurassic Park" and "Rising Sun". |
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The Forest People Colin Turnbull The Forest People -- Colin M. Turnbull's best-selling, classic work -- describes the author's experiences while living with the BaMbuti Pygmies, not as a clinical observer, but as their friend learning their customs and sharing their daily life. Turnbull conveys the lives and feelings of the BaMbuti whose existence centers on their intense love for their forest world, which, in return for their affection and trust, provides their every need. We witness their hunting parties and nomadic camps; their love affairs and ancient ceremonies -- the molimo, in which they praise the forest as provider, protector, and deity; the elima, in which the young girls come of age; and the nkumbi circumcision rites, in which the villagers of the surrounding non-Pygmy tribes attempt to impose their culture on the Pygmies, whose forest home they dare not enter. The Forest People eloquently shows us a people who have found in the forest something that makes their life more than just living -- a life that, with all its hardships and problems and tragedies, is a wonderful thing of happiness and joy. |
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A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman Lisa Shannon Lisa Shannon had what some would call a good lifeher own business, a successful fiancé, a secure home. Then one day in 2005, shortly after her father’s death, an episode of Oprah changed everything. The show about women in the Congo depicted atrocities too horrible to comprehend: millions dead, women gang-raped and tortured, children starving and dying in shocking numbers. That day Lisa woke up to her dissatisfaction with the good” life and to her role as an activist and a sister.
She created a foundation called Run for Congo Women, with the goal to raise money to sponsor 30 Congolese women. What started as a solo 30-mile run has now grown into a national organization in connection with Women for Women International. Run for Congo Women holds fundraising runs in four countries and ten states, and continues to raise money and awareness. In A Thousand Sisters, Lisa shares firsthand accounts of her experiences visiting the Congo, the women she’s helped, and the relationships she’s formed. With compelling stories of why she remains committed to this cause, Lisa inspires her audience to reach out and help as well, forming a sisterhood that transcends geographic boundaries. |
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Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo Vanessa Woods A young woman follows her fiancé to war-torn Congo to study extremely endangered bonobo apes---who teach her a new truth about love and belonging. |
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Consuming the Congo: War and Conflict Minerals in the World's Deadliest Place Peter Eichstaedt Every time you use a cell phone or log on to a computer, you could be contributing to the death toll in the bloodiest, most violent region in the world: the eastern Congo. Rich in conflict minerals”--valuable resources mined in the midst of armed conflict and egregious human rights abuses--this remote and lawless land is home to deposits of gold and diamonds as well as coltan, tin, and tungsten, all critical to cell phones, computers, and other popular electronics. In Consuming the Congo, veteran journalist and author Peter Eichstaedt goes into these killing fields to find what is behind the bloodshed, hearing the stories of those who live this nightmarish reality. He talks with survivors of villages decimated by war and miners slogging knee-deep in muck, desperately digging up the gold, tin, and coltan on which Western culture depends. While these men work with picks, shovels, and iron bars, marauding militias and renegade army units who control the mines roam the jungles, killing and raping with impunity, taking their profits, and leaving villagers to a life of grueling manual labor, brutality, and disease. Some five million Congolese have died unnecessarily, the worst loss of human life since World War II, yet the pillaging and bloodletting continue at a frightening pace. Consuming the Congo not only explores the violence suffered by the Congolese but also examines how we, as part of the problem, can become part of the solution. |
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The Congo and coasts of Africa Richard Harding Davis This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. |
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The Road To Kalamata: A Congo Mercenary's Personal Memoir Mike Hoare The Road to Kalamata is the real-life adventure story of the 4 Commando team of mercenary soldiers, as told by their leader, Col. Mike Hoare. At the close of 1960, the newly formed independent state of Katanga in central Africa recruited Hoare and his team to suppress a rebellion by the Baluba, a fierce tribe of warriors rumored to be cannibals and known to torture and dismember any enemy soldiers unlucky enough to be captured. The events recounted in this book occurred in the Congo during the Katanga campaign of 1961.
With insight that only an officer with extensive battlefield experience can bring to this subject, Colonel Hoare chronicles the metamorphosis of 4 Commando from a loose assembly of individuals into a highly organized fighting unit, while also taking the reader inside the minds and hearts of men who sell their military skills for money. What emerges is a compelling and complex portrait of genuine adventurers, "a breed of men which," writes Hoare, "has almost vanished from the face of the earth."
Paladin Press is pleased to make available once again this engaging, colorful and thoughtful account, originally published in 1989, complete with a new foreword by the 20th century's most famous mercenary and one of its most eloquent storytellers. |