Facing the Congo

Author: Jeffrey Tayler
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0609808265
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 287

Book Description
Faced with an identity crisis in his work and his life, seasoned traveler and journalist Jeffrey Tayler made a bold decision. He would leave behind his mundane existence in Moscow to re-create the legendary British explorer Henry Stanley’s trip down the Congo in a dugout canoe, stocked with food, medicine, and even a gun-toting guide. But once his tiny boat pushed off the banks of this mysterious river, Tayler realized he was in a place where maps and supplies would have no bearing on his survival. As Tayler navigates this immense waterway, he encounters a land of smothering heat and intense rains, wary villagers, corrupt officials and dead-eyed soldiers demanding bribes, jungle animals, mosquitoes, and, surprisingly, breathtaking natural beauty. Filled with honesty and rich description, Facing the Congo is a sophisticated depiction of today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country brought to its knees by a succession of despotic leaders. But most mportant, Tayler’s stunning narrative is a deeply satisfying personal journey of fear and awakening, with a message that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt compelled, whether in life or in fantasy, to truly explore and experience our world.

Facing the Congo Hb Book Club

Author: Jeffrey Tayler
Publisher: Orbit Books
ISBN: 9780356226743
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description

Dancing in the Glory of Monsters

Author: Jason Stearns
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610391594
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412

Book Description
A "tremendous," "intrepid" history of the devastating war in the heart of Africa's Congo, with first-hand accounts of the continent's worst conflict in modern times. At the heart of Africa is the Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, bordering nine other nations, that since 1996 has been wracked by a brutal war in which millions have died. In Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, renowned political activist and researcher Jason K. Stearns has written a compelling and deeply-reported narrative of how Congo became a failed state that collapsed into a war of retaliatory massacres. Stearns brilliantly describes the key perpetrators, many of whom he met personally, and highlights the nature of the political system that brought these people to power, as well as the moral decisions with which the war confronted them. Now updated with a new introduction, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters tells the full story of Africa's Great War.

Crossing the Congo

Author: Mike Martin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 1849046859
Category : Congo River
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Book Description
The story of three friends journeying across 2,500 miles of the toughest terrain on the planet in a very old Land Rover called 9Bob. Over two months in 2013, they completed the only north-south crossing of the Congo River Basin in decades, travelling from Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to Juba, in South Sudan, a journey they had been told repeatedly was 'impossible'. On the way, they faced fierce challenges, ranging from jungle terrain, kleptocracy, fire ants, illegal mining and burrowing parasites, to factional disputes, destroyed bridges, non-existent roads and intense suspicion from local people. These difficulties, and others, found them building rafts and bridges to cross rivers, playing tribal politics, bargaining for Land Rover parts in scrapyards, and conducting makeshift surgery in the jungle--both on 9Bob and on one another. Conjuring all their combined ingenuity and resolve, they got through. But the Congo is raw, and the journey took its toll, exerting a psychological pressure on them that they hadn't expected. And although they all lost something in the Congo, this book is ultimately about the power of teamwork to overcome tremendous odds.

Emerald Labyrinth

Author: Eli Greenbaum
Publisher: University Press of New England
ISBN: 1512601209
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Book Description
Emerald Labyrinth is a scientist and adventurer's chronicle of years exploring the rainforests of sub-Saharan Africa. The richly varied habitats of the Democratic Republic of the Congo offer a wealth of animal, plant, chemical, and medical discoveries. But the country also has a deeply troubled colonial past and a complicated political present. Author Eli Greenbaum is a leading expert in sub-Saharan herpetology - snakes, lizards, and frogs - who brings a sense of wonder to the question of how science works in the twenty-first century. Along the way he comes face to face with spitting cobras, silverback mountain gorillas, wild elephants, and the teenaged armies of AK-47-toting fighters engaged in the continent's longest-running war. As a bellwether of the climate and biodiversity crises now facing the planet, the Congo holds the key to our planet's future. Writing in the tradition of books like The Lost City of Z, Greenbaum seeks out the creatures struggling to survive in a war-torn, environmentally threatened country. Emerald Labyrinth is an extraordinary book about the enormous challenges and hard-won satisfactions of doing science in one of the least known, least hospitable places on earth.

All Things Must Fight to Live

Author: Bryan Mealer
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608196674
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
In All Things Must Fight to Live, Bryan Mealer takes readers on a harrowing two-thousand mile journey through Congo, where gun-toting militia still rape and kill with impunity. Amidst burnt-out battlefields where armies still wrestle for control, into the dark corners of the forests, and along the high savanna, where thousands have been slaughtered and quickly forgotten, Mealer searches for signs that Africa's most troubled state will soon rise from ruin. At once illuminating and startling, All Things Must Fight to Live is a searing portrait of an emerging country facing unimaginable upheaval and almost impossible odds, as well as an unflinching look at the darkness that continues to exist in the hearts of men. It is non-fiction at its finest-powerful, moving, necessary.

The Democratic Republic of Congo

Author: Michael Deibert
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1780323484
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 197

Book Description
Over the past two decades, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been at the centre of the deadliest series of conflicts since the Second World War, and now hosts the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world. In this compelling book, acclaimed journalist Michael Deibert paints a picture of a nation in flux, inching towards peace but at the same time solidifying into another era of authoritarian rule under its enigmatic president, Joseph Kabila. Featuring a wealth of first-hand interviews and secondary sources, the narrative travels from war-torn villages in the country's east to the chaotic, pulsing capital of Kinshasa in order to bring us the voices of the Congolese - from impoverished gold prospectors and market women to government officials - as it explores the complicated political, ethnic and economic geography of this tattered land. A must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Africa, The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between, Hope and Despair sheds new light on this sprawling and often misunderstood country that has become iconic both for its great potential and dashed hopes.

Journey to the Heart of Darkness

Author: Trésor Yenyi
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1450258158
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 189

Book Description
Trsor Yenyi was born in Eastern Congo in 1983 at the peak of Mobutus reign. Not realizing he was witnessing history in the making, he was helpless as he observed the country slide first into chaos, then into its gravethe victim of looting, war, and corruption. It was only after he immigrated to the United States that he realized the depth of the destruction that had occurred and began nurturing a strong desire to return to his native country to search for a cure for the disease from which Congo suffers. In his compelling travel narrative, Yenyi details his return trips to Congo, his subsequent charitable work, and the heartbreaking stories of the countrys victims of war. While providing the voiceless a chance to speak through him, Yenyi reveals the humanitarian challenges of Congo and combines his life experiences with journal entriescreating an introspective glimpse into a world where child soldiers, rape victims, street children, and AIDS orphans are the realities of life. Trsor Yenyi has a dreamthat the troubled land of his ancestors will find peace once again. It is with this great hope for the future of his homeland that Yenyi remembers Congos forgotten.

Life and a Half

Author: Sony Labou Tansi
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253222877
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 150

Book Description
This crisp translation by Alison Dundy maintains the fast-paced action and bitingly satiric tone of the original.

The Dark of the Sun

Author: Wilbur Smith
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction Ltd.
ISBN: 1785765906
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
An action-packed thriller by global sensation, Wilbur Smith. 'A master storyteller' - Sunday Times 'Wilbur Smith is one of those benchmarks against whom others are compared' - The Times 'No one does adventure quite like Smith' - Daily Mirror The highest prize comes at the highest price... Captain Bruce Curry has a simple enough mission: to lead his mercenary soldiers to rescue a town cut off by rebel fighting in the Belgian Congo. But events quickly take a turn for the worse as it becomes clear that the town's diamond supplies are the real focus of the mission. And where there is treasure, danger always seems to follow. It isn't long before Curry finds something even more valuable than diamonds in the town. Something he'll do anything to protect. And soon he discovers that his most deadly enemies might be those closest to him . . .