This book (an audio I got out of my local library) continued my armchair explorations into places and history I know very little about. The first book this year that I'm mentally putting into this category was Salt, then later I read about the Basque people. Next I learned about the wanderings of the Blind Traveler. The White Nile continues in this vein of the history of exotic (to me!) places.
The White Nile was written by Alan Moorhead who was a very interesting person in his own right. He was a reporter in North Africa among other places during World War II. He wrote many popular books. The White Nile was published in 1960 and tells the story of the European (mostly British) exploration of the Nile during the 1800s and into the early 1900s. It begins with Sir Richard Burton and his exploring partner John Speke, then goes into depth about the explorers and British governors who followed, General Baker and his beautiful blond wife, Livingston the missionary and Stanley the American newspaper man who 'found' him, the heroic General Gordon the governor-general of Khartoum and many others. The characters and the exploits of these men are detailed in such a comprehensive, articulate and gripping way. Alan Moorhead could really write! I found myself completely captivated by the dangerous and often bizarre events told by Moorhead. He based much of his recounting on journals, letters, and newspaper articles at the time. The book seems impeccably researched.
I know very, very little about African history, especially places like Uganda and The Sudan. This book sent me to my globe and I spent time looking at maps of this area of Africa.
The character that really stands out in this book is General Gordon. In fact while listening to it I thought, wow, this story would make a great movie. It turns out that Hollywood did make a movie about the whole escapade starring Charlton Heston as Gordon in the movie Khartoum made in 1966. It's on my must see list, though I am sure Hollywood strayed from the exact story.
Moorhead's writings are based on his Victorian explorers' writings mostly, so there is quite a bit of bigotry towards the Arabs and African Natives. It is hard to know what is true and what is exaggerated because it is filtered through Victorian British eyes. Moorhead does try to be objective in many ways, but there are also many assumptions and tales that seem a bit slanted, to say the least. The Arabs had been in the area for a long time, making lots and lots of fortunes in the slave trade. The natives are portrayed often as very brutal. The whole Mahdist uprising sounded familiar to my ears just because we've seen this type of thing before with the likes of the Ayatollah in Iran, Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, etc. Islam does seem to lend itself to this sort of cult leader and subsequent instability.
Moorhead himself, born in Australia and spending many years living in England, might have had his own prejudices. One little area that I did know about in Ugandan history was the story of St. Charles Lwanga and the Christian Martyrs. According to Moorhead though the Scottish missionary, whose name I forget, was much more successful then the French missionary priest and there were more Protestant converts than Catholic, but actually there were very few converts at all. The missionaries were having a tough time bringing the populace around. He does talk about the martyrs, how they refused to submit to the Ugandan king who had a proclivity for sodomizing young boys. When Charles Lwanga and others refused, in the name of Christ to allow the king to abuse the boys, they were burned alived. (This whole thing is ironic in light of the scandals that have recently rocked the Church!). Moorhead's book was written in 1960 and I don't know what the situation was like then, but now Uganda is 42% Catholic and growing. There is a vibrate faith culture there and a famous shrine dedicated to the martyrs. So perhaps that French missionary wasn't quite the failure Moorhead makes him out to be!
Moorhead wrote another book about this whole era and place, called The Blue Nile. I'd love to read that too.
For more book reviews go to 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
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