About this title: An account of the course of the Blue Nile from the Ethiopian Highlands, through the Sudan and Egupt to the sea. The book contains an historical narrative which starts in the eighteenth century and ends in 1869. The period was dominated by four men: James Bruce, the Scot who journeyed to the supposed source of the Blue Nile, and stayed in warring Ethiopia; Napoleon who, needing military glory to further his political ambitions, led a brilliantly conceived expedition to Egypt; Mohammed Ali, the Turkish viceroy, who sent his son to conquer the Sudan in a ruthless quest for gold and slaves; and ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper & Row, New York
Date Published: 1962
Description: Good in good dust jacket. Signed by previous owner. 1962 Harper & Row hard cover. NOT EX LIB! Bright, clean pages with light reading wear, light edgewear. Dust jacket is scuffed with wrinkles & small tears along edges. 308 p. Illustrations. Index. Includes bibliography. read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper & Row, New York
Date Published: 1962
Description: Good. No dust jacket. Ex-library. Nice hard cover, lightly read, light shelf wear to cover, library stamps & stickers, stk #2568b9. 308 p. illus. 22 cm. Includes Illustrations. Includes bibliography. read more
Description: PB, A Dell Book, #0636, New York, 1968, Eighth Dell Printing. Covers are showing remains of price sticker on front, light backstrip crease, contents are browning, bookstore stamp on fep, clean and tight. Good. read more
Edition: 7th Printing
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Dell, New York
Date Published: 1967
Description: Good. No Jacket. 16mo-over 5¾"-6¾" tall. Small tears to wraps. Name on front wrap. Minor soiling. Light shelf wear. Great copy with clean pages. read more
Edition: 2nd Printing
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Four Square Book, London
Date Published: 1964
Description: Fair. No Dust Jacket as Issued. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Book shows heavy wear/ spine tight, pages clean/ covers scuffed, moderate edge wear/ readers slant/ covers creased with several small chips/ numerious page tips creased/ good research copy read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: New York: Harper & Row, 1962
Date Published: 1962
Description: Good in Fair jacket. DJ is well worn, with small tears on edges. Inside pages very good, clean, bright and tight. DJ price clipped, decorated endpapers. Unconditional money back guarantee. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
Date Published: 1962
Description: Good in Good + jacket. -Book Club (BCE/BOMC)--308 pages. Interior is clean and tight. Nice overall condition. -Publish Place: New York-Size: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper & Row
Date Published: 1962
Description: Good. Good hardcover and fair DJ. Pages are clean and unmarked. Covers show some edgewear, sunning, spotting. Dust jacket shows heavy tears, chips, edgewear.; 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! Free Delivery Confirmation! Ships same or next business day! read more
Description: Good. A background of barbarism, the slave market at Shendy, the orgies of the Ethiopian court, bizarre characters, bloody rogues--its all here. read more
""We are back at Jericho: the trumpets blow, the walls fall down and an age vanishes in an instant." writes Moorehead in the epilogue of The Blue Nile, which summarizes perfectly the spirit of the book. Unlike The White Nile, which described almost as in a mystery all the expeditions to discover the source of the river, there aren't many explorers nor much mystery in The Blue Nile. The location of the river source is settled early on, and although there are explorers/savants/military types who contribute to fill in geographical details, the real focus of the book seems to me the beginning of globalization.
In The White Nile, the protagonists were people - explorers, missionaries, merchants who encountered, lived and did business with locals. Here the focus is much more on the (violent) encounter of civilizations, from Napoleonic France in Egypt to Victorian Britain in Abyssinia. The emphasis on individuals (Napoleon, his lieutenants and his savants, Theodore and Napier) is deceptive, because they really stand for the advancing, Western, global modern versus the disappearing age of isolation and "savagery".
The essence of this clash is captured in the rather absurd British expedition to Ethiopia in 1868. In order to rescue a handful of frankly annoying Europeans who were kept somewhat prisoners by Emperor Theodore, and more importantly to rescue a wounded racial pride, the British mounted an extraordinary campaign. It involved 4,000 European soldiers, 9,000 'native' ones (a mix of Turks, Persians, Egyptians, Arabs, Sikhs, Hindus and who knows who else), Indian elephants to transport heavy artillery ("A seasick elephant was a formidable thing, and in the Calcutta moorings they had to face a cyclone" p235), camels and mules for the lighter artillery, horses, a fleet of 280 sail and steam ships, and the setting up of an entire city, Zula, complete with 2 piers, a railway , hospitals, storehouses and condensers to desalinize water. Except for the piers, everything else was dismounted and taken away at the end of the campaign. (The campaign ended with a handful of British casualties, thousands of Ethiopian ones, the prisoners rescued, and the British out of the country, at least for a time).
Aside from some comments that have not aged well ("The Arab compromised, schemed and bargained, the Ethiopian made rash hysterical gestures to satisfy his pride; and both races, when aroused, were absolutely ruthless" on p276 - sounds like is could easily be a fair description of French and British behavior throughout this period), the book is a pleasure to read, engaging, very well and passionately written, and very useful to understand a lot of what is going on in that area of the world today."
"This is a wonderful modern history of the Nile, discussing in nice detail the conquest of Egypt by Napoleon, the subsequent rule by Mohammed Ali, and the British invasion of Ethiopia. Very British writing style."
"As good as The White Nile was, this book is even better, in part because the characters are so unexpected (and less well known than those who populate the companion volume) and in part because the world and adventures described are so amazing.
While I was very familiar with Napoleon's Egyptian adventure from Herold's book and other sources, and I had read a bit about Napier's invasion of Abyssinia, Moorehead is such a master of historical narrative that the entire sweep of history in the Eastern Sudan and Ethiopia is made real in the most wonderful way.
As other readers have noted, by all means read both volumes. Once I had finished the one I couldn't help but take up the next and read them both straight through. If you enjoy well-written history don't miss Moorehead's Gallipoli, a marvelous work..."
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