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Travels in West Africa
Travels in West Africa
Oct 11, 2024 2:23 PM

Author:Mary Kingsley

Travels in West Africa

A remarkable account by a pioneering woman explorer who was described by Rudyard Kipling as 'the bravest woman of all my knowledge'.

Until 1893, Mary Kingsley lived the typical life of a single Victorian woman, tending to sick relatives and keeping house for her brother. However, on the death of her parents, she undertook an extraordinary decision: with no prior knowledge of the region, she set out alone to West Africa to pursue her anthropological interests and collect botanical specimens. Her subsequent book, published in 1897, is a testament to understatement and humour - few explorers made less of the hardships and dangers experienced while travelling (including unaccompanied treks through dangerous jungles and encounters with deadly animals). Travels in West Africa would challenge (as well as reinforce) contemporary Victorian prejudices about Africa, and also made invaluable contributions to the fields of botany and anthropology. Above all, however, it has stood the test of time as a gripping, classic travel narrative by a woman whose sense of adventure and fascination with Africa transformed her whole life.

This Penguin edition includes a fascinating introduction by Dr Toby Green examining Victorian attitudes to Africa, along with explanatory notes by Lynnette Turner.

Mary Kingsley was born in north London in 1862, the daughter of the traveller, writer and physician George Kingsley and his former housekeeper, Mary Bailey. Her education was scant: while her younger brother Charley was sent away to school, she stayed at home. In 1886 the family moved to Cambridge, where Kingsley remained until 1892, caring for her bedridden mother. Following the deaths of her parents, Kingsley embarked on a voyage to West Africa in August 1893, with the object of studying native religion and law and collecting zoological specimens. In December 1894, she undertook a second trip to the region, during which she became the first woman to climb West Africa's highest mountain, Mount Cameroon. On returning home eleven months later, she wrote Travels in West Africa, which was published in 1897 and was followed by West African Studies in 1899. Kingsley made one final trip to Africa, enlisting as a volunteer nurse in South Africa during the Boer War. She had only been there for two months when she developed typhoid fever and died, on 3rd June 1900, before being buried at sea in accordance with her wishes.

Lynnette Turner is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Edge Hill University.

Toby Green is Lecturer in Lusophone African History and Culture at Kings College London. His book The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa appeared in 2011.

Reviews

Superb

—— Noel Mostert , New York Times

Mr. Morris is evidently incapable of being dull... Hemingway would have relished his vigorous way of bringing history to life

—— The Times

An accomplished volume, anatomising the achievement of Zulu nationhood and its destruction by the British at the high watermark of Victorian imperialism.

—— Observer

The book to end all books on the tragic confrontation between the assegai and the Gatling gun... Colourful yet commendably fair

—— Times Literary Supplement

This magnificent book is not only a history of the Zulus, the "Black Spartans", from their rise under Shaka to the deliberate destruction of the independent Zulu nation through the war forced on them by Sir Bartle Frere, but also a full-scale immensely knowledgeable account of British Colonial and military policy in relation to Southern Africa, and of the men who carried it out.

—— Punch

A magnificent book, an explosion of truth-telling

—— Times Literary Supplement

Unusual, vivid, raw and revealing

—— Donald Woods , Sunday Times

Many books are called "searing". This one really is. Rian Malan, a journalist of solid Afrikaner stock, explores deeper into the darkness of late apartheid South Africa than any other writer

—— Economist

Includes all of Charlotte's know how and insider tricks into a book, (this is the) ultimate go to guide on how to care for this type of hair

—— Hello Magazine

A long overdue bible on textured and curly hair (...) Good Hair begins with the history and sacredness of the afro hairstyle, the part it played in the Black Power Movement and Mensah's own story'

—— Psychologies Magazine

Toby Green's transformative book repositions West African history in an entirely new light. It brings into focus the region's fundamental place in shaping the modern world as well as the powerful and also difficult legacy of this today.

—— Paul Reid, Director, Black Cultural Archives

Very seldom do I pick up a history book and wish I had written it myself. Toby Green's A Fistful of Shells is one such book. Brilliantly conceptualized, beautifully written, it breaks with colonially configured regional boundaries - which work to re-create unintended silos of knowledge - to imagine a West and West Central African Atlantic history of money, power, religion, and inequality that is as rich as it is sound.

—— Professor Nwando Achebe, Michigan State University

This book represents an extraordinary and admirable archival and bibliographic undertaking.

—— Times Literary Supplement

A vital book that offers us new, complex narratives to view African countries and their relationships to Europe and the Global North. Faloyin's stylish, propulsive prose blends history, memoir and opinion, so that reading him has the impression of being at the knee of a great storyteller.

—— Jonathan Nunn, editor of Vittles

Demonstrates how that old saying - "this time is different" - is both so true and so wrong!

—— Lord Stephen Green , former CEO and Chairman of HSBC and UK Minister of State for Trade and Investment, 2011-2013

Crashes are an integral part of the history of capitalism. The last century has seen plenty of them. All crashes begin with debt-fuelled euphoria and end in disappointment. Yet how bad that disappointment turns out to be also depends on where in the economy the crash falls and how determined and credible are the responses. In this lively and blessedly brief book, Linda Yueh does a lovely job of explaining the history and drawing the necessary lessons

—— Martin Wolf , Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times

This excellent overview identifies the ingredients that are specific to each crisis and common to all. She provides a lucid assessment of the efficacy of policy responses, high-lighting credibility as a necessary condition for successful resolution

—— Lord Nick McPherson, , former Permanent Secretary of the UK Treasury, 2005-2016, and Chairman of C. Hoare & Co.

"Why did nobody notice?" Was the question the Queen asked about the 2008 financial crisis. It was a good question. All financial crises and crashes have their own characteristics but they also often involve certain common features:- Irrational exuberance, Speculative frenzy, Greed and over confidence usually supported by high levels of gearing.

Linda Yueh's new book will be a timely reminder to governments and regulators of the warning signs of future crises

—— Lord Norman Lamont , former Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1990-1993

Timely, entertaining and full of useful insights

—— Gideon Rachman , Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator, Financial Times

Renowned economist Dr Linda Yueh looks at past financial crashes - from the Wall Street Crash to the dot com boom and bust and the Covid pandemic - to explore what we can learn from them in this entertainingly written book.

—— i, Best New Books in May

Entertaining, well-written . . . [Yueh] has come up with a three-step framework to help spot when financial problems are brewing and identifies where the next may occur.

—— Ben Wright , Telegraph

A gifted writer (een begenadigd schrijver)

—— De Telegraaf
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