Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 910
EAN: 9780300142235
ISBN: 0300142234
Label: Yale University Press
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 608
Publication Date: 2008-10-28
Publisher: Yale University Press
Studio: Yale University Press

(20080306)

Customer Rating:
Summary: A different H.M. Stanley
Comment: Tim Jeal goes against the grain with this account of the incredible life of African explorer Henry Morton Stanley. For the last 140 years or so history has largely condemned Africa's greatest explorer for his cruelty and difficult personality. Jeal, apparently having access to documents previous biographers have not, makes a compelling argument which reveals Stanley as a softer, more egalitarian explorer than his counterparts, who unfortunately, through misguided exaggerations in his own published writings and other unfortunate events (stemming from the day he was born), lead to the widely held views that we have today.

This book, if closer to the truth than all those before it, turns the myth of Africa's greatest explorer on it's head.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Maybe a little too much detail
Comment: The problem with this book is that it's 475 pages long. If you're gonna read a 475-page book it better be about something you're awfully interested in, and I was only marginally interested in Stanley. The research I've done indicates that this is the definitive book about him, which is great and all, but I didn't really need a definitive book about him; a 300-page summary would've done fine.

I'm realizing that 300 is the right number of pages for me. After that I start to feel like I'm working.

In addition, I find Jeal's take on Stanley overly apologetic. I get it, he wasn't quite as bad as everyone makes him out to be, but that doesn't mean he was a totally righteous dude; Jeal goes too far sometimes.

Jeal's a good writer though, easy to read, so for a 475-page book it did move pretty quickly.

I wouldn't call this required reading unless you're a serious Stanley buff.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: An outstanding biography, I presume!
Comment: This is well written and well research biography. Captures the cultural and personal elements of Stanley's life. One experiences the details and struggles of Stanley's explorations in Africa as well as the range of his personal and romantic relationships. Both honest and fair in assessing Stanley's strengths & weaknesses. One unfortunate flaw: there are no maps to clarify the routes of Stanley's explorations.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: One of History's Misunderstood Characters
Comment: This book tells the story of one of history's most misunderstood and mischaracterized individuals. Henry Stanley rose from poverty to become one of the world's most effective but least known explorers, uncovering central Africa's mysteries and unwittingly creating the groundwork for the rape and bondage of a continent. From the famous but never-uttered "Dr. Livingston, I presume," to the reduced public stature resulting from the self-serving detrimental statements of others, Stanley emerges as a complex man worthy of a better and truer place in history than he accomplished. In addition to the personal tale, this book opens to the reader the state of 19th century Africa and is worth reading if only from this perspective.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Stanley's Sad and Glorious Life
Comment: Jeal's wonderful biography of Stanley succeeds on many levels, as biography, history, psychology, cultural analysis and literature. The book brings to life his three great African journeys that made him famous but also captures the other parts of his life: his humble upbringing in Wales, his time in America and his later years in England. Stanley was a complicated man and, after reading the book, I felt I understood him.

The book also provides a good picture of Victorian England and the politics of the European powers towards Africa in the late nineteenth century. His book also reflects on the subsequent developments in Africa that color how we now look at the exploration and colonization of Africa.

Jeal was provided access to a vast trove of Stanley's writings that were previously unavailable. A fascinating part of this book is to see how new information, combined with a writer's keen analysis, can completely upend the standard view of a person or historical event.

All in all, a thoroughly interesting book.

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