John Bierman (1929–2006)

John Bierman, reports Stanley was a consummate liar and that Stanley's autobiography is filled with perversions of reality. Stanley says he found himself in America after deserting England via ship. He was conned into the Confederate army by a southern belle who promised eternal love (Stanley says.) Nonsense, reports Bierman. This was another part of the myth. There is evidence he fought at Shiloh, where he was captured by Union troops, and interned near Chicago. He volunteered to change show more sides, was accepted, only to be released after 6 weeks, following a severe attack of dysentery. He finally got work as a newspaperman, and in typical British fashion (see Huntford's Scott and Amundsen or the comments about John Franklin below), struck out for Africa knowing nothing about it. Ostensibly, his mission was to find David Livingstone, who had been incommunicado in central Africa for several years.

A harsh taskmaster, Stanley would round up deserters from his expedition and tie them together. On one occasion he was forced to quell a mutiny with a shotgun.

When he finally found Livingstone, the famous phrase "Dr. Livingstone, I presume," brought him both fame and ridicule. Asked in later years if he had indeed said the famous line, he replied he could not think of anything else to say. Livingstone was resupplied, and after exploring Lake Tanganyika together, Stanley returned to Zanzibar. The expedition provided the credibility for him to become war correspondent for numerous British colonial expeditions, where he learned to hate the supercilious manner of British officers who were loath to stoop beneath themselves (a criticism leveled at Franklin and Scott as well).

Following the death of Livingstone, who had become almost a father figure to him, Stanley decided to become an explorer and adventurer. (Just like that.) Stanley was the first to cross Africa (in 1874-1877) discovering Lake Victoria in the process. (I know, I know, the Africans were there first.) The journey took 103 days, and half his party was lost due to disease, hostile natives (who had every reason to be hostile given the depredations of the Arab slave traders), and desertion. Their trip around the lake by boat took 57 days but provided valuable information.

On another expedition several years later, he followed the length of the Congo River from its source. Stanley's last expedition was in concert with King Leopold II, the conniving, guileful, aristocratic leader of Belgium. Ostensibly, the trip was to found a "Congo Free State" to benefit Africa; in reality, Leopold was mostly interested in ivory.

The book documents enormous misery caused by white colonization and the Arab slave trade. Entire regions were devastated, crops destroyed, families torn asunder. The only good thing that can be said of European colonization was that it essentially drove out the slave trade. Some have suggested that had the slave trade been allowed to continue, Africa would have been depopulated within a generation or two. Of course, Leopold and his contemporaries needed the indigenous population to assist in raping the land. Before international pressure forced an end to the predatory practices, companies chartered in the Congo Free State had killed over 3,000,000 natives.

The effect of Africa on the white man became legendary. Although Stanley himself never succumbed to "the horror," officers in his rear guard did, and great controversy arose following their return to England about the "unspeakable" acts they participated in or allowed to happen. In fact, some authorities consider several of Stanley's officers as candidates for the prototype of Kurtz in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Conrad was in command of a Congo riverboat when the controversy about Stanley's men broke. show less

Thought-provoking, inspiring account of a Swedish diplomat who saved the lives of over 100, 000 Hungarian Jews during the Second World War, only to be swallowed by the Russian Gulag and declared 'dead' in 1947 (debate over this was still raging at the time this book was published in the early 1980s).

Wallenberg was a real-life Scarlet Pimpernel - indeed, was inspired by Leslie Howard's updated version of the story 'Pimpernel Smith' - who bravely and selflessly risked his life to save the show more Jewish community of Budapest from being deported and 'liquidated' by the Nazis. Charismatic and confident, his gentle image disguised a strong nerve and the firm authority which helped him to achieve his personal 'mission' by bluff, bluster and bribe. His bete noir Adolf Eichmann, Hitler's architect of the Final Solution, was challenged and defied many times by this one man's determination to rescue Jews from unimaginable suffering and inhuman killings.

Wallenberg's heroism, and the horrific acts that stirred him to action, are clearly dramatic and emotional, yet the personality of the man remains distant and slightly detached in this account by Bierman - like the Pimpernel, the real Raoul Wallenberg is an elusive figure, part legend and part controversy. Everyone should read about this largely forgotten hero, however - his singular pledge of sanctuary and salvation for humanity goes some way towards redressing the atrocities of Nazi Germany. show less

Napoleon III tends to get overshadowed by his far more illustrious relative Napoleon I, so it's good to find a biography of Napoleon III with only the occasional reference to old Boney.

Bierman captures the full trajectory of Napoleon III's life, from rejection by his father who believed (possibly quite correctly) him illegitimate, through his rise to prominence as the descendant of Bonaparte and the inheritor of his legacy, Napoleon III's time as Emperor and his fall from grace. It must be show more hard to follow such an illustrious ancestor; the highest achievement of anyone in my family was my grandfather swearing in the presence of Winston Churchill, and it's not something I'm ever going to match, so having to live up to a family member who was one of the great military leaders of all time and who became master of Europe would be tough. show less

This is an interesting and readable biography of a major figure in the European exploration and colonization of Africa. The author is more kind to Stanley than some;since Bierman adamantly agrees that Stanley was a habitual, probably pathological liar, it seems a little questionable to readily accept Stanley's reports of his behaviour and motives some of the time, when we know they aren't true most of the time. But overall, lively and accurate writing, backed up by good research with show more documentation. show less