Introduction: Mungo Park's ghost; 1. In the shadow of the slave trade; 2. Grand ambitions; 3. Hopes and hubris; 4. Futility and folly; 5. The second time as farce; 6. Inquest; 7. Eating the country; Bibliography; Index.
The forgotten story of two British expeditions to Africa that went disastrously wrong and left a hidden legacy.
Dane Kennedy is a historian of the British imperial world who has written eight books, including The Last Blank Spaces: Exploring Africa and Australia (2013), and has edited or co-edited three others. An emeritus professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University, he has served as Director of the National History Center and President of the North American Conference of British Studies and he has been awarded Guggenheim and National Humanities Center fellowships.
'Mungo Park's Ghost is a brilliantly executed account of the most
ambitious expeditionary bids ever made by the British government to
explore the African continent - and almost certainly the most
disastrous. Written with verve and rigour, Kennedy wonderfully
documents geographical exploration as imperial hubris.' Charles W.
J. Withers, Professor Emeritus in University of Edinburgh and
former Geographer Royal for Scotland
'Dane Kennedy creatively and insightfully depicts the ignorance and
ineptitude of Britain's early, all-but-forgotten attempts to
explore an African interior torn apart by the brutality of the
slave trade. What initially appears comically misguided evolves
into a tale of rapaciousness and aggression that set the tone for
later British misadventures in Africa.' Stephanie Barczewski, Carol
K. Brown Scholar in the Humanities and Professor of History,
Clemson University
'Few historians can match Dane Kennedy's mastery of British
imperial mythology. In this witty, gripping and often tragicomic
history of failed expeditions in search of a confluence of the
Congo and the Niger, Kennedy shows the intricacies and influence of
British scientific societies, the complexities of imperial
masculinity and the extent of British imperial ambitions in West
Africa in the early nineteenth century. Attentive to the many ways
that hired African labourers and local kings and chiefs held the
lives of British military officers in their hands, and to how West
African politics shaped the expeditions, Kennedy explores the gulf
between imperial grandiosity, the colossal reputation and
mysterious death of Mungo Park, and the fly-blown, shambolic
reality of British imperialism in West Africa in the early
nineteenth century. Mungo Park haunted the British empire in
unexpected ways, and this excellent book makes an elegant case for
the importance of close attention to 'heroic failure' in British
imperial and colonial history.' Padraic X. Scanlan, Centre for
Industrial Relations and Human Resources, University of Toronto
'Dane Kennedy is the best historian of imperial exploration writing
today. Mungo Park's Ghost foregrounds African actors and states in
the story of British intervention in West Africa, to deliver fresh
insights into the dynamics of slavery and anti-slavery and an
unvarnished exposé of the overweening power of imperial hubris.'
Maya Jasanoff, Coolidge Professor of History, Harvard
University
'… offers an excellent corrective to the blockbuster biographies of
'great British explorers' that continue to appear. It shows us how
a version of imperial nostalgia was created long before African
countries were fully colonized, and helps us to reflect on how
powerfully that imperial nostalgia still circulates in Britain
today.' Clare Pettitt, The Times Literary Supplement
'… Kennedy has succeeded in writing a book that is well worth
reading. It is not only recommended for readers who are interested
in journeys of exploration, but also for anyone who is generally
interested in British activities in Africa in the 19th century or
who is looking for methodological inspiration for topics that, due
to the history of research and the availability of sources, are
often accused of being Eurocentric or of reproducing colonial
narratives.' Albert Feierabend, H-Soz-Kult
'Kennedy has produced a book that challenges conventional
narratives of exploration and discovery at a time when this sort of
rhetoric is being redeployed in new guises on the African
continent. It is a timely check on our inherited assumptions and
received narratives, and as such, I hope lays the foundation for
renewed attention on this pivotal moment in the history of the
continent and African people's encounters with shifting forms of
European imperial ambition in the nineteenth century.' Jennifer
Hart, International Journal of African Historical Studies
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