Livingstone

by Tim Jeal

David Livingstone is revered as one of the world's greatest explorers and missionaries and as the first European to cross Africa. This biography reveals the man behind the myth, one capable of ruthless cruelty as well as self-sacrifice and bravery, and dogged by failure as well as success.

Genres: Biography, Africa, History, Nonfiction, Travel, 19th Century, Adventure

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Tim Jeal is the author of acclaimed biographies of Livingstone and Baden-Powell. His memoir, Swimming with My Father, was published by Faber in 2004 and was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. He is also a novelist and a former winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.

Reviews

[Nathan Douthit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, the scholarship seems to be excellent and revealing about a heroic man who had feet of clay. The flaws of Livingstone are quite pronounced in this work, but at the end it seems the author tries to make up for it by patting him on the back when compared to the British Imperialism that followed him. There are also a few disparaging comments about Christianity in general and missionaries in particular that I feel are not necessary.

[Amanda Himes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This biography of Dr. David Livingstone, famous African explorer and missionary, left me with tears in my eyes. Jeal reveals the many flaws of the man--his irritability with other Europeans; his over-optimism about the Zambezi River as a highway; under-reporting of the spread of malaria and inter-tribal warfare, which cost several people their lives; his lack of time for his young family; his love of praise; the list goes on. What Livingstone got right, though, is an even longer list: his respect for Africans; his desire to see Christianity spread; his equally fervent desire to see the slave trade quashed; his prophetic understanding of what British colonial involvement would do for Africa, good and bad; his physical and moral strength under unbelievable trials of malarial fever, near starvation, loss of a child and later his wife while in the bush, his mapping of much of Africa (seldom or never seen by other Europeans and probably not by any one African), his disdain for worldly wealth. When I teach 19th C. Brit Lit next, it will be with Livingstone's contributions to geography, mission work, and imperialism in mind.

[Tanja Nayak · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brutally honest biography of a famous missionary and explorer. The author takes a look a Livingstone's life from start to finish. The man obviously had lofty ideals and admirably took a strong stance against social issues like slavery, but he was not a good husband or father, although he did provide well for his eldest daughter. He seemed obsessive about his travels in Africa and was at times misguided. He and his family paid the price in the end, sadly.

I enjoy reading historical biographies, and this definitely fills the gaps left by the last book I read that was solely about Stanley. The book seems textbookish at times, but is well-researched and well thought out. Would recommend reading it if you have time.

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tried this after reading (and very much enjoying) this author's biography of Stanley. Livingstone's life was not quite as exciting as Stanley's (whose is?) and Livingstone turns out to be a quite unlikable character, so this one wasn't enjoyable as the Stanley book. However, the author seems to know the subject inside out. He finds a nice balance between scholarship and reader-friendly prose, so that the non-specialist can follow along (although more maps would help). Nevertheless, this book is recommended strictly for those with a preexisting interest in the subject.

[Mark Thuell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every aspect of his life is covered in an unsentimental and slightly repetitive narrative. The man himself is laid bare but Africa and the Africans lack colour and atmosphere. Even though this book was a bit of a slog I’m tempted to read his book about Stanley who seems a more likeable character.

[Noman Ahmad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Livingstone: Revised and Expanded Edition: Tim Jeal
Description: David Livingstone is revered as one of history’s greatest explorers and missionaries, the first European to cross Africa, and the first to find Victoria Falls and the source of the Congo River. In this exciting new edition of his biography, Tim Jeal, author of the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Stanley, draws on fresh sources and archival discoveries to provide the most fully rounded portrait of this complicated man—dogged by failure throughout his life despite his full share of success.
Using Livingstone’s original field notebooks, Jeal finds that the explorer’s problems with his African followers were far graver than previously understood. From recently discovered letters he elaborates on the explorer’s decision to send his wife, Mary, back home to England. He also uncovers fascinating information about Livingstone’s importance to the British Empire and about his relationship with the journalist-adventurer Henry Morton Stanley. In addition, Jeal here evokes the full pathos of the explorer’s final journey. This masterful, updated biography also features an excellent selection of new maps and illustrations.

Comments: I always wanted to learn about David Livingstone life and his achievements. I first heard of him in Top Gear special for Africa to find the source of Nile. In recent holiday trip to London, I stumbled on to this book in a bookstore. I often try to avoid the physical copies because I typically struggle with fonts. Anyway I bought and bring that book to home and waited couple of months before start. It’s not an easy read I admit. It had lots of references to places, regions, lakes and tribes that I had no clue where and who they are unless I review map and given references. On the question of Biography, It appears that Tim Jeal left no stone unturned to make sure that his readers gets most close to real picture of Dr Livingstone life. I felt tormented to read about his early life as a child labour while making extra efforts to get himself educated. This struggle left a mark on his personality which contributed his over optimism and self belief that no matter how hard the circumstances are, it will not be worse than what he already endured. His relationship with fellow countrymen and his ambitions and optimism leads to several disastrous events in missionaries in south and central Africa. As the author said in conclusion, the greatest quality of Dr Livingstone was his over optimism and that alone was his greatest fault as well. As a reader, I gain one thing that I often find in stories. No man is saint and we all have some good and some bad sides. What we need to be conscious about is that our bad side should not become the cause of harm to anyone else.

[Dave Appleby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A biography of the Victorian British missionary and explorer of Africa who was greeted by Stanley with the famous words: "Doctor Livingstone, I presume."

Despite the fact that, as a missionary, he made only one convert who later apostatised and, as an explorer, he made no significant discovery, David Livingstone was one of those Victorian icons who achieved near-saint status. This biography shows the man behind the myth. And he was horrid.

He was a self-made man. Born to poverty, living in a single room with his parents and four other siblings, he worked in a textile mill from the age of ten. Education came after eight PM. He must have had incredible determination and strength to save the money needed to go to medical school at the age of 21, moving on to missionary school and eventually being funded to go to Africa. But this strength and determination and the lack of either a proper childhood or, indeed, the chance to make mistakes and do the normal things that men learn from in their early adulthood meant that he was driven, intolerant of failure and weakness, and that he had almost no empathy. There is no doubt that these character traits made him able to struggle on where others gave up or died and there is equally no doubt that he was psychologically crippled, unable to provide leadership, and deeply flawed as a human being. His intolerance of personal failure led him to distort the truth to the point of lying and these lies led to other missionaries and their wives and children losing their lives. His inability to empathise led to the death of his own wife and the deaths of some of those for whom he was responsible, in expeditions he led. He was a monster.

The author makes these points time and again:

"He was never able to judge others except by the standards he had set himself." (C 2)
"He believed without question that in all working relationships one person had to dominate the other person or persons absolutely, whether man, wife, or fellow-missionary." (C 5)
"Livingstone was to show himself capable not only of hypocrisy and self-righteousness in his dealings with colleagues but also of lies and double-dealing." (C 5)
"Livingstone ... deliberately maligned innocent people for whose deaths he had been partially responsible, in order to escape the slur of having misrepresented the true situation ... He never showed regret for this behaviour." (C 12)
"Livingstone ... would simply prove a disastrous leader." (C 14)
"That central defect in Livingstone's character: his virtual inability to respond to the sufferings of others." (C17)
"When his colleagues on the Zambesi fell ill, and could not endure hardships which he considered routine, he despised them for it. This scorn became so pronounced that in the end he was able to shrug off the deaths of the missionaries ... as just another form of spinelessness and lack of guts." (C 24)

But perhaps worse than these personal failings which might be excused as the normal foibles of a great man was Livingstone's intentions. He saw with crystal clarity that the reason missionaries were struggling to convert Africans to Christianity was because the power of tribal culture was too strong. "The central problem which any Christian critic of tribal organization faced was the fact that the whole system was based on collective generosity rather than on private ownership and personal wealth: a far more 'Christian' society in that respect than capitalist nineteenth century Britain." (C 8) So he proposed destroying tribal culture by a process of colonisation; he sought to replace tribalism with capitalism and the model he favoured was a few white people managing the labours of many black people:

"Everything, he repeated, was hopeless for Africa unless there was 'contact with superior races by commerce'. The Africans ... were cowardly and through their constant use of cannabis could not form 'any clear thought on any subject'." (C 10)
"Livingstone was one of imperialism's earliest prophets and advocates. From the mid-1850s he began writing about the British as a 'superior race' with a divine mission 'to elevate the more degraded portions of the human family'. British businessmen, he averred, were 'the most upright and benevolent in the world'." (C 13)
"Colonization ... would force social change on the Africans, destroying their customs and institutions and so leaving them psychologically prone to accepting a new set of beliefs." (C 24)
In the end the author tries to be fair to his subject and to explain why he was hero-worshipped:

"His dogged refusal to give up in the face of hopeless odds, his uncomplaining acceptance of agonizing pain and finally his lonely death conjure up images so powerful that his contemporaries' adulation seems, in retrospect, the only possible response." (C 24)
"To be great is to be different, so ordinary criteria of judgment fall short. The point at which determination becomes obsession, and self-sacrifice self-destruction is very hard to estimate." (C 24)
"Yet even if Livingstone's determination is called obsessive - and it was - it must be acknowledged that without this inflexibility he would never have left the mills." (C 24)

But in the end the people around him suffered. His wife (whom he had married because he felt that a missionary should have a wife to help him) and children were dragged along with him or sent back to England to live in poverty when he decided that they were an encumbrance. His fellow explorers were routinely denied any share in his discoveries by being lied about and libelled and just ignored when he wrote his books. Those who believed his claims about Africa (over-optimistic and false) suffered and died in trying to fulfil his plans.

In many respects (such as the dreadful childhood and the routine use of falsehood to self-glorify and to libel others and the carelessness with the lives of others) Livingstone is very like that other famous African explorer Stanley: Frank McLynn in Stanley: the making of an African explorer shows what an awful man he was. Another 'eminent' Victorian who also worked others to death through refusing to believe that anyone's sufferings could match her own was Florence Nightingale, who biography by Cecil Woodham-Smith is here. Was it just Victorians whose heroes were monsters or are all 'great' people seriously flawed?
Other selected quotes:

"Livingstone was not the first nor the last religiously motivated man to see his own wishes and personal preferences in terms of the dictates of Providence, and to justify them accordingly." (C 8)
"Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five most young men learn, through close contact with other people, to accept that earlier ambitions and ideals may have been pitched too high. They come to realize that their are limits to their own abilities, and in marrying, or forming close attachments, are forced to recognize that compromise and concession are vital for the success of any close relationship." (C 24)
"The expanding middle class ... discovered that Christian virtues could easily be exchanged for business virtues: abstinence, diligence, an exemplary home life and a weekly confrontation with the Maker could produce rewards in this life as well as the next." (C 11)

A brilliantly written book which exposes the monster behind the saintly hero.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tim Jeal, Livingstone. Revised and Expanded Edition. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013. 432 pp. $28.00

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…” Charles Dickens famous opening line to A Tale of Two Cities summarizes well Livingstone by Tim Jeal. At times Jeal’s writing is fascinating, and moves right along, at other times it is like facts spewed forth in a boring fashion. Jeal is a British biographer, specializing in men of the Victorian Age. Livingstone, like most men in history, have a complicated history, and Jeal seeks to bring this out in the biography. The work divides into six parts, each dealing with various aspects of Livingstone’s complex character. Part One: Aspirations deals with the early life of Livingstone and how it shaped him into the man and explorer he became covering the years of 1813-1849. Part Two: Achievement spans the years of 1849-1856, highlighting his trans Africa expedition. Part Three: Fame covers the years 1856-1860 and explains how he became famous for his trans-Africa exploits. Part Four Reversal covers 1858-1864, documenting Livingstone’s failure to find the source of the Nile. Part Five: Rejection spans 1864-1865, explaining the rejection Livingstone faced for failing to find the Nile’s headwaters. Finally, Part Six: Atonement covers 1866-1873 and explains how Livingstone went from rejected hero, back to famed explorer by the work of Henry Morton Stanley’s finding of Livingstone and later newspaper articles recounting Livingstone’s heroism and bravery.
Jeal has professionally researched Livingstone and at times writes well, moving the reader along, and at other times his pace slows to a slow crawl. Jeal may be writing to allow the reader to understand the slow pace of travel in Africa at that time. Unfortunately, it makes for a boring history. The first half of the book is an enjoyable read, the middle drags on, and the end picks back up. Though Jeal does mention Livingstone’s work as an abolitionist and missionary he goes into little detail about Livingstone’s beliefs or arguments in those areas. He focuses more on his personality and relationships in the field. Whatever stance you take on Livingstone, Jeal has demonstrated that he was at least an excellent explorer. This biography would be a helpful source in research and an enjoyable read for only with a deep interest in history or men of the Victorian Age. “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times….”

Daniel D. Baltich, Pastor
First Baptist Church of New Berlin, NY, USA

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tim Jeal spent 99% of this 396 page book trying to convince readers that David Livingstone, missionary and explorer, was a driven curmudgeon. As his is the first bio which is not a hagiography, maybe he felt impelled to break new ground. I read his Explorers of the Nile, in which he tore Burton apart. I have his book on Stanley, and it is with great fear and trepidation that I will crack the cover. He spends a lot of time on petty quarrels and assumptions based on his psychoanalysis of his subjects. The plus side is that the books are meticulously researched and there is much to learn about Africa in the Victorian era.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well researched and written, less enjoyable than expected as I found myself disliking Livingstone intensely. As the book went on my opinion of DL went from pity, to respect, to verging on hatred, and then back to pity.

[Gilles Demaneuf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

[Les Dangerfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book I have had on the shelf for about 15 years and finally decided to read because this is the bicentenary of Livingstone's birth. It is an excellent biography of a man whose reputation during the 20th century owed much to the myth built by H.M Stanley and others towards the end of his life. He was an incredibly driven man, so much so that he ignored the needs of others in the world around him, especially those of his family, to achieve what he saw as important. In almost everything he did he failed in his immediate aims. As a missionary, he converted one person to Christianity. His Zambezi expedition was disastrous and the few missionaries who settled as a result of his vision mostly died of fever along with their wives and children. Later in life, having discovered that Burton and Speke were doing exploration around the Lake Victoria area to identify the source of the Nile, he committed his final years in an obsessive campaign (unsuccessfully) to prove them wrong and to find the source of the Nile himself. Despite his failures, he was possibly unique as a European explorer in understanding the culture of Africans in eastern and central Africa and in treating them as human beings. He was also a tireless campaigner against slavery, though achieved little to actually reduce it's incidence.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

David Livingstone was a great missionary-explorer with a difficult personality, at least as described in this 1973 book.
Even those of us who know little about him today probably know the phrase: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume." Although the encounter with Henry Stanley occurred late in Livingstone's life, after almost everything that was going to be accomplished had been accomplished, it was significant, Tim Jeal explains. Stanley singlehandedly revived Livingstone's reputation in Great Britain. Perhaps we'd barely remember Livingstone today if it hadn't been for the journalist, whose initial goal was simply to make his own reputation as a journalist. It's because of Stanley that so much that Livingstone hoped to accomplish but didn't was achieved ... and not terribly long after Livingstone's death.
Livingstone's early biographers, like Stanley, glossed over his flaws. Jeal was attempting to create a more balanced portrait in this work. He might have leaned too heavily in the other direction, quick to accept the accounts of Livingstone's critics. He doesn't discount Livingstone's almost superhuman efforts or Livingstone's esteem for the African people.
I wonder if there's a better biography of Livingstone out there; if not, someone should write it. This one is on the dry side -- it started me on more unintended naps than any book I've read in a while.

[Namboole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. As a Zambian, I now have a better understanding of Livingstone's journeys to Central Africa. He was indeed a determined man with little resources but achieved a lot. He opened Central Africa for the British and without Livingstone most of Central Africa would have been in the hands of the Portuguese. Interestings, Livingstone the slave traders to take him into a number of places and they cared for him too.

I note with interest how selected Southern Province of Zambia for occupation by the white man.

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was on my bookshelf for a while before I picked it up, and then I couldn't put it down. On Amazon.com there are scads of books for young people idolizing this man. After reading this, I wonder why. As far as I remember he never made a true Christian convert. His main focus was finding the source of the Nile. This he never did because he would decide ahead of time where it should be and then go looking for it. Overall, it was a fascinating biography.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Livingstone (revised & expanded ed.) / Tim Jeal. This biography of the nineteenth century British medical missionary and explorer is one of the best I have had the pleasure to read. Briefly, I credit the density of detail, thanks to the author’s judgment and Livingstone’s letters and journals, the author’s clear expression of geographical and historical information, and his wise, brave, and extensive analysis throughout the book.

[Leon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comprehensible biography in which Tim Jeal aims (somewhat overly eager) to shatter the saintly image created by Stanley and maintained by previous biographers. Livingstone's character provides him with plenty of ammunition. Still, the psychological analysis seems crude and the books lacks the historical context you'd expect in describing such an influential figure.

[Mark Loughridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good ‘warts and all’ biography. I can’t stand hagiography—I think it renders biography worse than useless.

This is certainly not hagiography. At times it seems overly severe on Livingstone—but what do I know, I haven’t read any of the source material.

An honest and eye opening biography.

[Tommyb]

Biography,History,Africa,exploration

[Peter Milligan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Painful hateful read.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating look at a man who was larger than life.