Rating: 
Summary: Courage in Africa
Review: If the only thing you ever knew about Stanley and Livingstone was the famous phrase "Dr. Livingstone, I presume", but would really like to know the underlying story and enjoy a truly remarkable adventure, this is a great book to read. Livingstone had spend his career in Africa and was probably one of the most famous white explorers of his time, having walked across Africa in the first half of the 19th century. He returned when he was older to find the source of the Nile. He became ill and lost, and many presumed he was dead. The most amazing, exciting and improbable part of the story is Stanley, a complete unknown, who showed resourcefulness and courage as a correspondent on assignnment by the New York Herald. He was sent to find Livingstone and "scoop the story." You will be amazed and on the edge of your couch when you learn how he did it by overcoming disease, insects, tribal warfare, and impassable jungle.
Rating:
Summary: Courage in Africa
Review: If the only thing you ever knew about Stanley and Livingstone was the famous phrase "Dr. Livingstone, I presume", but would really like to know the underlying story and enjoy a truly remarkable adventure, this is a great book to read. Livingstone had spend his career in Africa and was probably one of the most famous white explorers of his time, having walked across Africa in the first half of the 19th century. He returned when he was older to find the source of the Nile. He became ill and lost, and many presumed he was dead. The most amazing, exciting and improbable part of the story is Stanley, a complete unknown, who showed resourcefulness and courage as a correspondent on assignnment by the New York Herald. He was sent to find Livingstone and "scoop the story." You will be amazed and on the edge of your couch when you learn how he did it by overcoming disease, insects, tribal warfare, and impassable jungle.
Rating:
Summary: Courage in Africa
Review: If the only thing you ever knew about Stanley and Livingstone was the famous phrase "Dr. Livingstone, I presume", but would really like to know the underlying story and enjoy a truly remarkable adventure, this is a great book to read. Livingstone had spend his career in Africa and was probably one of the most famous white explorers of his time, having walked across Africa in the first half of the 19th century. He returned when he was older to find the source of the Nile. He became ill and lost, and many presumed he was dead. The most amazing, exciting and improbable part of the story is Stanley, a complete unknown, who showed resourcefulness and courage as a correspondent on assignnment by the New York Herald. He was sent to find Livingstone and "scoop the story." You will be amazed and on the edge of your couch when you learn how he did it by overcoming disease, insects, tribal warfare, and impassable jungle.
Rating:
Summary: a newspaper man's time and geographical slice
Review: It's a breezy read, aimed at the general public at mid high school level writing. The author is a newspaper man, and one of the main characters- Stanley is likewise a newspaper man's newspaper man. The book reminds me of the kind i'd love to find as a high school student: fun, interesting, provocative- something to write a review about for extra credit.Two form items deserve comment. First the chapters alternate: first Livingstone, then Stanley, nice and effective technique. Second, each chapter has a small sidebar where the distance between the two men is calculated. A neat way of doing it, builds the suspense, and makes the movement of the men towards each other all the more interesting. One deeper thought that the book provoked was the humanness of history. The fact that it is made by men (yes, and women, men is generic here) who choose each day to do something, to challenge themselves. This book bears out this idea to the max, the people involved are human, sometimes heroes, often not. But both of the main characters are portrayed as human, and yet just a little superhuman, this class of people who just do above and beyond the call of duty. This is significant, and it makes the book worth the time to read. i publicly thank the person who recommended it to me for it is off my usual track. Plus i really need to practice my speedreading on something, and heavy science is not the right place, this book was. So if you like history a little bit, dont want to be bogged down in heavy big-word writing, like reading newspaper accounts or journalistic writing, then this is a good book for you. thanks for reading this review.
Rating: 
Summary: Expertly written, superbly organized, a masterpiece
Review: Not since the published works of Stanley and Livingstone themselves has the public been introduced to such a remarkable and enthralling book about one of the most famous-and entertaining-exploration tales of all-time. Martin Dugard, a hands-down authority on the subject, brings us one of the most advanced and well-researched accounts of the meeting between two of the most beloved adventurers ever to venture into the heart of unexplored Africa. Dugard doesn't water this book down with a religious bias (like most of the other works I've read on the topic), but instead writes with the vigor that is necessary to understand just what it must have been like for these men in a time of darkness and wonder. Excellent work without the romanticism that usually comes with tales of Dr. Livingstone. Get this book and read today!
Rating:
Summary: Intestinal Fortitude Knows No Bounds
Review: One of the great mysteries of the late nineteenth century was not so much where was the source of the Nile River, but where was the explorer, Doctor David Livingstone, who was in search of the source. No need for lengthy details here - I would like to simply say that there has never been a movie made that contained as much breath-taking adventure as this true epic of exploration. The armchair historian will come away with a great admiration for both Doctor Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley, not only as great explorers but as two men who were so devoted to their cause that they allowed nothing to curtain or contain their quest. This is a fascinating and amazing adventure quite unmatched in any of it's kind. For those who have given only a passing thought to the Stanley and Livingstone saga in history, you will come away from this book with a fresh and strong appreciation for what real men with a real cause will endure.
Rating:
Summary: A Superb Non-Fiction Adventure Story
Review: Pieced together like a fine quilt, alternating chapters between
the key characters, setting forth a great chronology of events between the two explorers, Livingston and Stanley, their true life adventure jumps right out of these pages making it one of the best adventure stories written, and its all true besides. I picked this book up to read while recovering from knee surgery and hated to see it end. There is no doubt this was well researched. The writing style is superb. Buy it, you'll love it and it will become a permanent part of your library.
Rating:
Summary: Welcome to the Jungle
Review: The search for the source of the Nile was one of the last great mysteries left for geographic explorers and Dr. David Livingstone was one of the men most committed to solving the age old question. When he was lost in the heart of Africa, Henry Stanley, a reporter and world-traveling rogue, decided he would earn his fame and fortune finding the lost explorer. Their lives never connected until their famous meeting in Africa, but Dugard does an excellent job presenting their lives up to that fateful moment by alternating chapters and giving the sense that they were destined to meet. This is a very well written and extensively researched book and will be a great read for people who already know a lot about Stanley and Livingstone or readers like me coming to the book knowing next to nothing. It will also please readers who typically have little interest in non-fiction, because it is such a fast-paced drama. I would highly recommend this book to all readers.
Rating: 
Summary: Check the New Yorker review
Review: There exists a New Yorker review of this book (June 2,2003 issue). It is absolutely fascinating - the review, that is, not the book. It exposes the book as "pedestrian rehash that reads like one of the Victorian hagiographies". The book has ignored all the intervening research and accepted as fact Stanley's self-serving and now-discredited accounts. Most of the New Yorker review is about Stanley and Livingston themselves and chockful of realistic info about these fascinating and utterly dissimilar characters.
Rating:
Summary: A tribute to exploration in the Victorian age.
Review: With an encompassing narrative, and detailed descriptions of people, circumstances, and places, "Into Africa" is a worthy read for simple entertainment. Learning about Livingstone and Stanley, was engrossing, and learning about their respective journeys through Africa was harrowing and at times defied belief. If ever anyone needed an example of pure determination and pursuit of a goal, and then accomplishment, this book delivers. Showing an emotional aspect, Mr. Dugard demonstrates that attaining a near impossible goal can also result in more intangible rewards, such as Stanley's maturation through his ordeal in Africa to find Dr Livingstone. If you never think history can be exciting, read this book and you will be disabused of that notion. Warring tribes, hostile natives, opportunistic chieftans, Arab slavers, constant disease and inummerable parasites (non-human), all combine to form a formidable obstacle for these intrepid adventurers.
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