David Livingstone Africas Greatest Explorer The Man The Missionary And The Myth

In 1841, a twenty-eight-year-old Scottish missionary, David Livingstone, began the first of his exploratory treks into the African veldt. During the course of his lifetime, he covered over 29,000 miles uncovering what lay beyond rivers and mountain ranges where no other white man had ever been. Livingstone was the first European to make a trans-African passage from modern day Angola to Mozambique and he discovered and named numerable lakes, rivers and mountains. His explorations are still considered one of the toughest series of expeditions ever undertaken. He faced an endless series of life-threatening situations, often at the hands of avaricious African chiefs, cheated by slavers traders and attacked by wild animals. He was mauled by a lion, suffered thirst and starvation and was constantly affected by dysentery, bleeding from hemorrhoids, malaria and pneumonia. This biography covers his life but also examines his relationship with his wife and children who were the main casualties of his endless explorations in Africa. It also looks Livingstone’s legacy through to the modern day. Livingstone was an immensely curious person and he made a habit of making meticulous observations of the flora and fauna of the African countryside that he passed through. His legacy includes numerable maps and geographical and botanical observations and samples. He was also a most powerful and effective proponent for the abolition of slavery and his message of yesterday is still valid today in a continent stricken with drought, desertification and debt for he argued that the African culture should be appreciated for its richness and diversity. But like all great men, he had great faults. Livingstone was unforgiving of those that he perceived had wronged him; he was intolerant of those who could not match his amazing physical powers; and finally and he had no compunction about distorting the truth, particularly about other people, in order to magnify his already significant achievements. Illustrations: 40 colour illustrations

"An examination of the life and accomplishments of the explorer and missionary who traveled southern Africa and was the first European to reach Victoria Falls"--Provided by publisher.

What really happened to Dr. David Livingstone? The New York Times bestselling coauthor of Survivor: The Ultimate Game investigates in this thrilling account. 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.

Some men do their greatest work in the face of heart-breaking disappointments; such was David Livingstone. Facing jealousy from other missionaries, the death of his wife, troubles, delays, worries, hunger, thirst, illness, and the fear of death from the slave-dealers and wild animals, Livingstone was still close to God. His Bible was his solace and he felt the companionship of Jesus Christ even when he was most alone. Though David Livingstone has been dead for over a century, he has an honored name and his fame is fresh. He believed that God had called him to open Africa; and having done so, he left it to others, under God’s guidance, to pick up the task where he had finished. Because of the work of David Livingstone, there are thousands of missionaries on the field today; missionaries who love the same Lord Jesus who made Livingstone the hero that he was.

Livingstone is perhaps the best-known missionary of them all. His attempts to find the source of the Nile and his famous meeting with Henry Morton Stanley have become the stuff of legend. The truth behind the legend, however, is even more compelling. Drawing extensively from Livingstone's personal notes and letters, Rob Mackenzie unfolds the intensely human story of a man with a vision - to set souls free from slavery, both physically and spiritually, and to open up Africa to Christianity and lawful commerce Livingstone has come to be regarded as a figure purely based on a few events, lost in legend, yet his tomb inscription reads 'Brought by faithful hands over land and sea here rests David Livingstone - missionary, traveller, philanthropist... for 30 years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelise the native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets, to abolish the desolating slave trade of Central Africa where with his last words he wrote "all I can add in my solitude, is, may heaven's rich blessing come down on every one, American, English, or Turk, who will help to heal this open sore of the world." An amazing story awaits you on the first page.

Exhibition book of essays and objects celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great African explorer and missionary doctor, the Victorian hero David Livingstone.

“A superb biography, not to be missed either by armchair explorers or students of human nature…reveals the famed missionary and explorer as he really was.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer David Livingstone is revered as one of history’s greatest explorers and missionaries, the first European to cross Africa, and the first to find Victoria Falls and the source of the Congo River. In this exciting new edition of his biography, Tim Jeal, author of the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Stanley, draws on fresh sources and archival discoveries to provide the most fully rounded portrait of this complicated man—dogged by failure throughout his life despite his full share of success. Using Livingstone’s original field notebooks, Jeal finds that the explorer’s problems with his African followers were far graver than previously understood. From recently discovered letters he elaborates on the explorer’s decision to send his wife, Mary, back home to England. He also uncovers fascinating information about Livingstone’s importance to the British Empire and about his relationship with the journalist-adventurer Henry Morton Stanley. In addition, Jeal here evokes the full pathos of the explorer’s final journey. This masterful, updated biography also features an excellent selection of new maps and illustrations. “Fascinating.”—Los Angeles Times “A thrilling and in the end moving work…The Livingstone who emerges is a man of terrifying dimensions.”—Irish Press

David Livingstone has gone down in history as a fearless explorer and missionary, hacking his way through the forests of Africa to bring light to the people - and also to free them from slavery. But who was he, and what was he actually like? "He was an extraordinary character- according to biographer Stephen Tomkins -spectacularly bad at personal relationships, at least with white people, possessed of infinite self-belief, courage, and restlessness. He was an almost total failure as a missionary, and so became an explorer and campaigner against the slave trade, hoping to save African lives and souls that way instead. He helped, however unwittingly, to set the tone and the extent of British involvement in Africa. He was a flawed but indomitable idealist." Fascinating new evidence about Livingstone's life and his struggles have come to light in the letters and journals he left behind, now accessible to us for the first time through spectral imaging. These form a significant addition to the source material for this excellent biography, which provides an honest and balanced account of the real man behind the Victorian icon.