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The River Congo: The Discovery,Exploration and Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic Rivers
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The River Congo: The Discovery,Exploration and Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic Rivers Customer Reviews
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The History of a Very Troubled River
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"The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration and Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic River" by Peter Forbath was intended to follow Alan Moorehead's two excellent books, "The White Nile" and the "Blue Nile." Indeed, Forbath has done an admirable job in this regard. The human association with this river, often witness to horrible blood baths (including those still in progress) is minutely documented here up to the mid 1960s, from the first exploration of the West African coast and the discovery of the mouth of the Congo by the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cao in 1482 to the immediate aftermath to independence- the Simba uprising.
In all, the Congo River (called the Zaire for a time and now renamed the Congo) witnessed some of the bloodiest wars and genocides in recent history. Brought on to a large degree by the early slave trade, later misrule and cruelty under King Leopold (think "Heart of Darkness"), and benign neglect from Belgium after Leopold, the Congo still suffers from man's inhumanity to man to the present day. Yet at the same time the Congo is one of the mightiest of rivers and its basin encompasses some of the most biodiverse regions on earth, aside from the Amazon.
Forbath, once a foreign correspondent, has written a classic and definitive history of a great tropical river, whose very name "Congo" evokes a dangerous and exotic imagery.
If anyone would like to understand why the Congo has such a dark reputation, this is the book to read. |
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