Product Description

With the utterance of a single line—“Doctor Livingstone, I presume?”—a remote meeting in the heart of Africa was transformed into one of the most famous encounters in exploration history. But the true story behind Dr. David Livingstone and journalist Henry Morton Stanley is one that has escaped telling. Into Africa is an extraordinarily researched account of a thrilling adventure—defined by alarming foolishness, intense courage, and raw human achievement.

In the mid-1860s, exploration had reached a plateau. The seas and continents had been mapped, the globe circumnavigated. Yet one vexing puzzle remained unsolved: what was the source of the mighty Nile river? Aiming to settle the mystery once and for all, Great Britain called upon its legendary explorer, Dr. David Livingstone, who had spent years in Africa as a missionary. In March 1866, Livingstone steered a massive expedition into the heart of Africa. In his path lay nearly impenetrable, uncharted terrain, hostile cannibals, and deadly predators. Within weeks, the explorer had vanished without a trace. Years passed with no word.

While debate raged in England over whether Livingstone could be found—or rescued—from a place as daunting as Africa, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the brash American newspaper tycoon, hatched a plan to capitalize on the world’s fascination with the missing legend. He would send a young journalist, Henry Morton Stanley, into Africa to search for Livingstone. A drifter with great ambition, but little success to show for it, Stanley undertook his assignment with gusto, filing reports that would one day captivate readers and dominate the front page of the New York Herald.

Tracing the amazing journeys of Livingstone and Stanley in alternating chapters, author Martin Dugard captures with breathtaking immediacy the perils and challenges these men faced. Woven into the narrative, Dugard tells an equally compelling story of the remarkable transformation that occurred over the course of nine years, as Stanley rose in power and prominence and Livingstone found himself alone and in mortal danger. The first book to draw on modern research and to explore the combination of adventure, politics, and larger-than-life personalities involved, Into Africa is a riveting read.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #134811 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-13
• Released on: 2004-04-13
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

From Publishers Weekly
It is rare when a historical narrative keeps readers up late into the night, especially when the story is as well known as Henry Morgan Stanley's search for the missionary and explorer David Livingstone. But author and adventurer Dugard, who's written a biography of Capt. James Cook among other works, makes a suspenseful tale out of journalist Stanley's successful trek through the African interior to find and rescue a stranded Livingstone. Dugan has read extensively in unpublished diaries, newspapers of the time and the archives of Britain's Royal Geographical Society; he also visited the African locations central to the story. Together these sources enable him to re-create with immediacy the astounding hardships, both natural and manmade, that Africa put in the path of the two central characters. Dugard also presents thoughtful insights into the psychology of both Stanley and Livingstone, whose respective responses to Africa could not have differed more. Stanley was bent on beating Africa with sheer force of will, matching it brutality for brutality, while Livingstone, possessed of spirituality and a preternatural absence of any fear of death, responded to the continent's harshness with patience and humility. Descriptions of the African landscape are vivid, as are the descriptions of malaria, dysentery, sleeping sickness, insect infestations, monsoons and tribal wars, all of which Stanley and Livingstone faced. More disturbing, however is Dugard's depiction of the prosperous Arab slave trade, which creates a sense of menace that often reaches Conradian intensity. This is a well-researched, always engrossing book.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-A superb tale of adventure, heroism, and suffering. Dugard provides essential background information between generous servings of heart-pounding excitement. The story begins in the spring of 1866 as David Livingstone was leaving Zanzibar for Mikindary to begin his search for the source of the Nile. Meanwhile, Henry Stanley, an unremarkable freelance writer, embarked on his own adventure, a journey east from Colorado that began by rafting the South Platte River. He hoped for a career as a newspaper reporter in New York. The activities of each man are described in alternate chapters. Rich biographical detail contributes to readers' understanding of the men's backgrounds and characters. This is not a tale for the squeamish: exhausted men slogging through fetid swamps succumb to horrifying diseases; roving bandits mutilate and devour their captives. Using the men's detailed journals, the archives of the Royal Geographic Society, newspaper reports, an impressive collection of secondary sources, and a few black-and-white photographs, the author provides readers with a picture of the time that is as compelling as the story of the search. Details about the role of newspapers, the management of ships, the debates about slavery, and many other topics enrich this book. The volume ends with the burial of Livingstone in Westminster Abbey, but an epilogue provides brief notes on the remainder of the lives of the other major figures in the story.
Kathy Tewell, Chantilly Regional Library, VA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
An adventurer himself (he's coauthor of the best-selling Survivor), Dugard tells the greatest adventure story of them all.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Another Page-Turner by Dugard
Ever since I read "The Last Voyage of Columbus," I have been a Martin Dugard fan. In "Into Africa," Dugard does an admirable job of mixing adventure story-telling with important historical details to make this a fun, historically-compelling read. As a young child I thrilled at the adventures of Livingstone and openly wished to be like him. Now, many years later, Dugard's prose has pernitted me to relive that childhood adventure while also allowing the adult in me to savor the gritty reality of Livingstone's near-fatal treks.

Decent Popular History
A good story, though not extraordinarilly well written. It does serve well enough as a casual introduction to the story of Stanley and Livingstone.

A More Realistic View of African Exploration
Henry Morton Stanley, who's real name was John Rowlands- he was left at a horrible Victorian workhouse after his grandfather died (his mother having abandoned him), was a remarkable man. He certainly had his flaws, but considering his lack of family from age five, he did rise to a prominence that would certainly make a Horatio Alger book pale by comparison. By contrast the missionary David Livingston, was a crusading anti-slavery activist who became distracted by the then popular obsession- the source of the Nile. Despite his more prim upbring Livingston had his flaws, which emerge in his journals and letters. He was also a remarkable man and certainly endured (as Stanley did) hardships that should have killed him before they finally did.

This fascinating story, including many details I had never encountered in earlier books, are well recounted in "Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingston" by Martin Dugard. This is a real page-turner and a story that is not censored to make either man look better than he was. I did find several errors in fact (elephantiasis is not a form of leprosy and one GENUS of mosquitoes transmit malaria, not one species as implied by the author!) However, despite such lapses and an occasional purple passage, Dugard has written a most interesting account of the famous expedition to find Livingston. The reader will also start to realize why Africa is in its current state, what with inter-tribal warfare, Arab and other slave trading, constant raids, murder, endemic disease and colonialism, it is hard to see how anything else could have resulted. The wonder is that any African states are stable at all after their fairly recent history.

A good read and a worthwhile examination of two lives that unexpectedly intertwined.