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Loading... Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survivalby Dean King
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. How often can you read a book read by Abraham Lincoln? This one profoundly influenced his views on slavery! The story was based on the narrative of James Riley, captain of the American Brig Commerce, which ran aground off the coast of Africa in 1815. Riley and his shipmates were captured by nomadic Arabs and forced into slavery. Originally published in 1817, Riley's narrative was a best-seller in the 19th century. After 100 years, National Geographic's Dean King went to Africa to retrace their steps through what is now Morocco in Western Africa and tell the story once again.  sharonestelle | Mar 3, 2009 |  Dean King blends two first-hand accounts with copious research to recount the 1815 wreck of the U.S. merchant ship Commerce off the west coast of Africa and the crew's captivity. What follows is a great description of the desert climate, local customs, nomadic life, heatstroke, starvation, and cruel enslavement endured by the sailors. This classic of when the U.S. Commerce was shipwrecked near Cape Bojador should be required reading list. The story is riveting enough to capture and hold anyone's attention. The crew was captured by Sahrawi Arabs then sold into slavery. After which they experience travel across eight hundred miles of the Sahara Desert. Pressed into labor and fed meager portions of food we follow their story as they face dehydration, starvation, barbarism, murder, insects, sandstorms, ethnic hostility and death around every corner. A true tale of endurance and adventure that will make you want to continue reading. This is a must read today as Riley's book "Narrative of the Loss of the American Big Commerce" in 1816. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln wrote that he had read Riley's book and that it influenced his attitudes concerning slavery. (  )1  mramos | Jan 29, 2008 | Gripping. A survival novel based on historic Africa. This book taught me more about living in rustic rudimentary poverty than probably any other -- even better than Poverty by Vollmann. Although this is an adventure and survival story, the accounts of the lifestyle of the African nomads - how little they had to eat, how dear any morsel of food was, for their entire lives, their rituals of killing a sheep at midnight, all these things are indelibly marked on my brain. Although technically some of the seafaring survival situations seem horrid, this one seems worse than all of them. The men were sold into slavery in Africa to incredible lean/poor nomads and treated terribly. The book is graphic and effected me emotionally. I won't spoil the end but the book does have a solid beginning, middle and end and I was relieved to get some closure on most of the men and what happened to them - as much of the book is based on historical journals. (  ) shawnd | Nov 13, 2007 | Survival 19th Century Africa ( ) IraSchor | Apr 4, 2007 | Loved it. Well-written and captivating. ( ) sew-what39 | Dec 27, 2006 |  no reviews | add a review
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(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:05 -0400)
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