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Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In scarcely half a generation during the late 1800s, six European powers sliced up Africa like a cake. The pieces went to Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Belgium; among them, they acquired 30 new colonies and 110 million subjects. Although African rulers resisted, many battles were one-sided massacres. In 1904 the Hereros, a tribe of southwest southwest, if not a country name Africa, revolted against German rule. Their punishment was genocide--24,000 driven into the desert to starve; those who surrendered were sent to forced labor camps to be worked to death. In a dramatic, gripping chronicle, Pakenham ( The Boer War ) floodlights the ``dark continent'' and its systematic rape by Europe. At center stage are a motley band of explorers, politicians, evangelists, mercenaries, journalists and tycoons blinded by romantic nationalism or caught up in the scramble for loot, markets and slaves. In an epilogue Pakenham tells how the former colonial powers still dominate the economies of the African nations, most of which are under one-party or dictatorial rule. Photos. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Like our own century's headlong rush to own the Bomb, European powers in the late-19th century raced to acquire colonies in Africa. Now, in a comprehensive and certain-to-be-standard account of this ``scramble,'' Pakenham (The Boer War, 1979) describes the motives and methods of what Bismarck called ``the colonial whirl.'' For Pakenham, the ``scramble'' began with the death of David Livingstone, the great missionary and explorer. Horrified by the new slave trade, organized by the Arabs and their African allies, that was destroying the heart of his beloved continent, the dying Livingstone pleaded for the three ``Cs''--Commerce, Christianity, and Civilization--to join in a worldwide crusade to root out the evil. But a fourth ``C''--Conquest--was added, and though the original ideals were never lost, they were often secondary to realpolitik and greed. Villains, heroes, rogues--each responded to the call in his own fashion, but ``all conceived of it in terms of romantic nationalism.'' There was Stanley, the consummate self- promoter; King Leopold II of Belgium, who made the Congo his personal fief; the idiosyncratic General Gordon, sacrificed to the Mahdi; and a large cast of other luminaries. In alternating chapters, Pakenham describes the individual European powers' ventures and misadventures in a continent that, in reality, was incapable of ever fulfilling their grandiose expectations. Indeed, no one except the wily Leopold, who stashed his gains in a hidden bank account, really came out ahead. And what of the Africans themselves, who were to be saved by the three Cs? Pakenham's answer is unfashionably Panglossian: Europe gave a continent in thrall to slave traders and despots ``the aspirations for freedom and human dignity, the humanitarian ideals of Livingstone, even if Europe was seldom able to live up to them.'' More anecdotal than analytical, but a spirited and intelligent history of one of the most seminal events in Africa, whose legacy is not yet spent. (Thirty-two pages of b&w photographs, 25 maps-- not seen.)
Booklist Review
It takes more than subject matter alone to draw general readers into lengthy books on history. It takes the promise and then fulfillment of strong narrative drive--a talent on the part of the author for rendering old issues fresh and past personalities lifelike. Librarians can assure potential readers of this hefty book that it has these qualities in high degree. Pakenham writes exhaustively yet dynamically of the amazingly short period of time (the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth) in which a handful of European nations ate up the whole continent of Africa for their own colonial pleasure, leaving, in the wake of their voracious appetites, only two outposts of independence, Ethiopia and Liberia. Pakenham emphasizes individuals--the colorful explorers who traipsed the continent, primarily--as he reconstructs the whole shabby story of this race for more and more land, more and more goods, and more and more international prestige. ~--Brad Hooper
Library Journal Review
In his excellent study of the Boer War ( The Boer War , LJ 11/1/79), Pakenham demonstrated his ability to handle a great mass of material and a complicated subject in a fashion that produces a readable, highly credible account. Here he turns those same skills to good effect in the infinitely more complex issue of the European exploitation of Africa, which followed close on the heels of exploration of the so-called ``dark continent's'' interior. The result is a sweeping narrative, refreshingly old fashioned in its appreciation of the fact that imperialism did have some virtues, which offers as good an introduction to the ``scramble'' as has ever been written. Essential for both public and academic libraries.-- Jim Casada, Winthrop Coll., Rock Hill, S.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
