Niger

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Mungo Park was the original lone explorer of West Africa. The first European to reach the Niger, record its flow direction and return alive, he was considered a hero on his return. He died during his second exploration attempt inland along the Niger to discover the city of Timbuktu. Published posthumously in 1815 by the African Institution, which had sponsored his journey, a biography, personal letters and the account of the rescue team sent to discover his fate accompany Park's own journal of the expedition. The journals and letters are a fascinating description of the constant dangers and thrill of the age of exploration. Battling adverse weather, local hostility, tropical diseases and the death of nearly all his party including his brother-in-law, Park writes 'I would still persevere; and if I could not succeed in the object of my journey, I would at least die on the Niger.'

Title: Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party.

Publisher: British Library, Historical Print Editions

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is one of the world's largest research libraries holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats: books, journals, newspapers, sound recordings, patents, maps, stamps, prints and much more. Its collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial additional collections of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 300 BC.

The HISTORY OF TRAVEL collection includes books from the British Library digitised by Microsoft. This collection contains personal narratives, travel guides and documentary accounts by Victorian travelers, male and female. Also included are pamphlets, travel guides, and personal narratives of trips to and around the Americas, the Indies, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

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The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification:
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British Library
Delany, Martin Robison;
1861.
75 p. ; 8º.
10095.cc.18.

An intricate maze of rivers and islands cuts across southern Nigeria's Niger Delta, a region subject to floods, tides, and tropical downpours that continually alter its geography. While these waterways serve to separate the many ethnic groups dwelling in this aqueous environment - each with its own unique cultural traditions and often its language - they have also long been employed as routes of transmission and trade. Delta men and women traversed the region in canoes long before the Portuguese arrived at its shores in the fifteenth century. Their ideas and art forms - including some of the largest wood sculptures and most vibrant masquerades in all of Africa - travelled with them, being adopted, adapted, and sometimes appropriated in the process. European influence has also been keenly felt, and Western artifacts and articles of dress appear in shrines, regalia, and masquerades. The essays assembled in this lavishly illustrated volume are unique in considering issues of cultural convergence and divergence within a single region in Africa. They examine and celebrate the "water-related" ethos and the "warrior" ethos that are present throughout the Delta and explore the influence of its unique environment on beliefs and material culture. Sadly, in the twentieth century the delicate ecosystems of the Niger Delta have suffered greatly as a result of the modern drilling technology employed by Western oil companies. While garnering huge profits, these firms have undermined the environment and deprived the Delta's inhabitants of basic necessities such as fresh fish and potable water. Despite these depredations the people of the Delta persevere, and the incredibly beautiful and varied works of art that appear in this volume are a testament to their history of inventiveness, adaptability, and courage. Recently published by the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History Art of the Lega Elisabeth L. Cameron Paperback - 0-930741-88-9 - GBP29.95 Katsina: Commodified and Appropriated Images of Hopi Supernaturals Zena Pearlstone Paperback - 0-930741-83-8 - GBP26.95 The Art of Being Kuna: Layers of Meaning Among the Kuna of Panama Mari Lyn Salvador Paperback - 0-930741-61-7 - GBP34.50

In 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa, a writer, political activist, and leader of the Niger Delta's Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), was summarily executed by Nigeria's brutal military junta. MOSOP was formed out of a final, desperate need to protest the destruction of a people's land and culture by two forces: a giant multinational corporation, Royal Dutch Shell, and a series of corrupt and repressive Nigerian governments.
With the support of the Nigerian regime, Shell has instituted practices such as gas flaring (the ignition of gas in the atmosphere), the laying of dangerous high-pressure oil pipelines above ground, and the pollution of water sources, degrading the land and leaving many local people destitute. In contrast to the beneficial picture of the corporation's activities painted by its public relations professionals, authors Ike Okonta and Oronto Douglas have found persuasive evidence that Shell and the Nigerian government share responsibility for making the Niger Delta one of the world's most endangered ecosystems.
As compelling as it is important, Where Vultures Feast is a story that demands to be heard.

Since returning to civilian rule in April 2011, Niger has achieved a measure of political stability. But though recent successes are encouraging, Niger’s progress is increasingly threatened by regional crises originating from neighboring states that include political discontent among Tuaregs, violence and refugee flows. The combined effects of these crises threaten to make life in Niger even harder.