The River Congo

The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration & Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic River was intended to follow Alan Moorehead's two excellent books, The White Nile & Blue Nile. Indeed, Forbath has done an admirable job in this regard. The human association with this river, often witness to horrible blood baths (including some still in progress) is minutely documented here up to the mid-60s, from the 1st exploration of the W. African coast & the discovery of the mouth of the Congo by the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cao in 1482 to the immediate aftermath to independence--the Simba uprising.
In all, the Congo River (called the Zaire for a time, now again the Congo) witnessed some of the bloodiest wars & genocides in recent history. Brought on to a large degree by the early slave trade, later misrule & cruelty under King Leopold (think "Heart of Darkness") & benign neglect from Belgium after Leopold, the Congo still suffers from man's inhumanity to man today. Yet at the same time the Congo is one of the mightiest of rivers & its basin encompasses some of the most biodiverse regions on earth, aside from the Amazon.
Forbath, once a foreign correspondent, has written a classic & definitive history of a great tropical river, whose very name evokes dangerous & exotic imagery. To understand why the Congo has such a dark reputation, this is the book to read.--David B. Richman (edited)