Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone

Book Description

With the utterance of a single line—“Doctor Livingstone, I presume?”—a remote meeting in the heart of Africa was transformed into one of the most famous encounters in exploration history. But the true story behind Dr. David Livingstone and journalist Henry Morton Stanley is one that has escaped telling. Into Africa is an extraordinarily researched account of a thrilling adventure—defined by alarming foolishness, intense courage, and raw human achievement.

In the mid-1860s, exploration had reached a plateau. The seas and continents had been mapped, the globe circumnavigated. Yet one vexing puzzle remained unsolved: what was the source of the mighty Nile river? Aiming to settle the mystery once and for all, Great Britain called upon its legendary explorer, Dr. David Livingstone, who had spent years in Africa as a missionary. In March 1866, Livingstone steered a massive expedition into the heart of Africa. In his path lay nearly impenetrable, uncharted terrain, hostile cannibals, and deadly predators. Within weeks, the explorer had vanished without a trace. Years passed with no word.

While debate raged in England over whether Livingstone could be found—or rescued—from a place as daunting as Africa, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the brash American newspaper tycoon, hatched a plan to capitalize on the world’s fascination with the missing legend. He would send a young journalist, Henry Morton Stanley, into Africa to search for Livingstone. A drifter with great ambition, but little success to show for it, Stanley undertook his assignment with gusto, filing reports that would one day captivate readers and dominate the front page of the New York Herald.

Tracing the amazing journeys of Livingstone and Stanley in alternating chapters, author Martin Dugard captures with breathtaking immediacy the perils and challenges these men faced. Woven into the narrative, Dugard tells an equally compelling story of the remarkable transformation that occurred over the course of nine years, as Stanley rose in power and prominence and Livingstone found himself alone and in mortal danger. The first book to draw on modern research and to explore the combination of adventure, politics, and larger-than-life personalities involved, Into Africa is a riveting read.

Customer Reviews:

An Unusual Meeting in Central Africa.......2007-09-15

Dugard is one of the new breed of biographer, in that he knows that every- mans life is made up of truth and fiction. At his best he gives us the more interesting side of both but is always faithful in explaining what has become myth and what can be documented. The life of David Livingstone has become so entangled with his myth that even after reading his diaries it's hard to tell how much is true and how much was perceived as true.

When it comes to Stanley, who reinvented himself so many times not to mention his change of name, always leaves the impression that he has taken the time to edit his journals and diaries. He is very seldom shown to be introspective, except when he uses those emotions to further his own myth. He was a driven man who could never settle for what he had done before, and had to do more than anyone else. The story of Livingstone being found by Stanley at a little village in the Lakes Region of Africa would have been so much more powerful if it had not been deconstructed and rebuilt so many times.

In this format, Stanley finds Livingstone sitting on the front porch of his house/hut and goes over to introduce himself. They are both civilized men who have been beaten down by the nature of Africa and have past the point of exhaustion. Livingstone is on the edge of starvation and has been for the last year. Stanley has crossed parts of Africa which Africans and Arab Slavers fear to go into. I can see Stanley (who idolized Livingstone) being uncertain of how to say hello, and therefore being as differential as possible.

Dugard does a wonderful job of putting both men into the context of the societies they lived in and the people they depended on. It's a fine and interesting story.

tremendous.......2007-03-24

I learned about Livingstone and Stanley briefly in my middle-school years. The details that I remember from that learning experience are sparse, and do nothing to describe the characters in the story.

This book fleshed out the lives of two men in marvelous detail. I never understood the humanity of Livingstone (I knew he was a missionary, a detail that tends to deify someone in my mind). I never understood the nature of Stanley and what drove him to find Livingstone when no one else could. These men were larger than life - both an inspiration to persevere where no one else can or will. Their accomplishments are worlds apart, but equally remarkable.

Stanley and Livingstone's Eponymous Adventure.......2007-01-03

Nearly everyone of a certain age knows "Stanley and Livingstone" and the memorable line "Dr. Livingstone, I presume." It's just one of those cultural snippets that gets passed down. Martin Dugard's interesting book gives the story to that shared and brief tidbit. Quite a story it is.

Dr. Livingstone was a poor boy who made good in Victorian England by earning the admiration of the better classes through exploration and perseverance in Darkest Africa. He would spend most of his adult life on the continent, greatly expanding European knowledge of the geography and peoples there. First as a missionary and later as a great explorer determined to find the source of the Nile River, Livingstone was in his own way a man of peace with great sympathy for Africa and Africans. He particularly detested the very active slave trade and slave raids run by Arabs between the interior and the central eastern coast of the continent.

Henry Stanley started life as poor and unmoored as one could be in that day and age. A young crewman out of England on a boat headed to New Orleans, he see destined to finish an early life as one of those mid 19th century petty criminals and ne'er-do-wells who described the seedy side of life. He managed to enlist in both the Union and Confederate armies and fight for both during the Civil War. He had though developed a passion for reading and found himself in the newspaper business out west as a free lance journalist. This occupation would be his life raft. Eventually ending up at the New York Herald, Stanley showed a willingness to go anywhere and endure great hardship to deliver what would today be considered blockbuster news to the voracious readership each of New York's twenty some papers competed for.

Dr. Livingstone's quest for the source of the Nile got him lost, physically weak, and stranded without the resources to get out of the interior. His English patrons and the world feared him lost, and his whereabouts were a source of great concern and focus. Here was Stanley's opportunity. With the promise of his publisher's help (although Stanley had to talk his way into a lot of credit), the journalist outfitted a secret expedition to find Livingstone and bring the story of his demise or rescue to the world. After almost a year of hard slogging through jungle and desert, mutinous porters and expedition members, participation in a native war, dalliance with Arab slavers, death and desperation on the trail and worry that he wouldn't find his needle-in-a-haystack, Stanley arrived at a village to discover a thin, sickly and ragged man much of the world had given up for lost and to whom he was able to greet with the immortal line "Dr. Livingstone I presume."

This is a well written adventure book that will fascinate on many levels. It offers a great portrait of Stanley and Livingstone as men and the great hardships that shaped their lives. Nineteenth Century exploration in Africa with all the disease, war, slavery, and beauty are painted well on the author's canvass. The motivations and mindsets of two men-of-action are thoroughly explored. This book weaves all of the above elements into a gripping story that is well worth the time.

GREAT INTRO TO AFRICAN EXPLORATION IN THE 19TH CENTURY.......2006-07-23

This book tells the intertwined tales of David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley. Dugard (the author) puts together a very well written story, giving the reader context to be excited when the culminating moment of "Dr Livingstone, I presume?" comes about.

The book provides a begginer on African exploration (such as myself) with a very good understanding of the context in Africa and England, as the Victorian era of exploration is at its best. Characters such as Murchison, Burton and Speke are described in detail as to their accomplishments. The reader also gets a good understanding of the discussion behind the source of the Nile and the difficulties involved in determining it.

The personal lives of Livingstone and Stanley are an integral part of the story. The tale how Stanley rose through newspaper ranks in NY and provided scoops on different European wars ahead of european reporters. His dubious character is portrayed in his experiences in Turkey, where he became a robber and was close to losing his life.

This is a rather short book -- 300 pages -- which can be read in a few sittings. If you are interested in exploration or would just like to know what these historical characters were up to, this is a very good book. It may drive the reader to the point of such curiosity that you may find yourself picking up a few of the books authored by the characters themselves (of which there are many).

Very interesting and educational treatise.......2006-05-03

"Doctor Livingstone I presume?" is undoubtedly one of the most well known quotes in history. Very few people, however, are familiar with the history underlying the meeting of Dr. David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley.

This book details the lives of the two men and the historical background through which they were thrown together. Livingstone, one of the foremost explorers of his day is searching for the source of the Nile River. Through a combination of bad luck, poor planning, disease, weather, natives, etc., Livingstone is virtually stranded on the banks of Lake Tangyanika.

Henry Stanley, a newspaper correspondent undertakes a rescue mission at the direction of his publicity hungry publisher. This book details that mission and the international setting under which it took place. The perils of African exploration in the late 19th century cannot be overstated. This book does an excellent job impressing this upon the reader.

I found this book very similar in style and experience to Undaunted Courage (which detailed the Voyage of Discovery undertaken by Lewis and Clark) and River of Doubt (dealing with Theodore Roosevelt's exploration of the Amazon basin. If you enjoyed either of these books, you will like this one as well. If you read this book and enjoy it, I highly recommend the other two.

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David Livingstone: The Dark Interior
Oliver Ransford
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0312183798

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Livingstone. One tough man.
Livingstone is Alive and Relevant!

David Livingstone: Mission and Empire
Andrew C. Ross
Manufacturer: Hambledon & London
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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Political | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Africa | History | Subjects | Books

Scotland | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

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General | Africa | Travel | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1852852852

Book Description

avid Livingstone (1813-1873) was one of the supreme repre-sentatives of the British Empire. Yet his career suffered many setbacks during his own lifetime, and since his death his reputation has swung between extremes of adulation and dismissal. Were his epic journeys through Africa purely to save souls and counter the slave trade? Or were they the first steps towards bringing the peoples of Central Africa under the control of Europeans who would destroy their values and exploit them economically? In this highly readable, smart biography, Andrew Ross takes a close and detailed look at the story of this complex and contradictory man, his journeys, his character, and his legacy.

Customer Reviews:

Livingstone. One tough man........2004-07-18

This work, featuring many new and nuanced insights, is a wonderfully written story of a very determined missionary and explorer. As the author so ably describes, our modern knowledge of David Livingstone is heavily influenced by the fact that, in death, he has been made the icon for many causes. His legacy has been put to the service of, for instance, British imperial aspirations. But as the author recounts, Livingstone's complexity defies any neat categorization.

Livingstone was possessed of a ferocious curiosity. He was born into a life of poverty, but became both a medical doctor and an ordained minister. He fathered a large family from whom, due to his travels, he was often away. Both his physical endurance, and his capacity to withstand pain were prodigious. His respect and admiration for African cultures was incomprehensible to his contemporaries. Witnessing firsthand the depredations of the slave trade, he devised strategies for development that, had they been heeded, provided a chance for leaving African cultures intact.

Livingstone mapped the unknown interior of Africa. His expeditions were remarkable both in the beauty of the places "discovered", and the grueling physical and consequent emotional demands on the explorers. During Livingstone's final expedition, the American journalist H.M. Stanley so famously "found" Livingstone. The meeting is replete with irony, and the context and effect of this meeting are very movingly described. Very moving, as well, is the story of Livingstone's death in Africa, and the transport, by loyal friends, of his body fifteen hundred miles to the coast.

Livingstone is Alive and Relevant!.......2004-06-18

> Andrew Ross' study of the life and work of David Livingstone is a worthy
> contribution to the literary corpus of this great man. Ross makes
> accessible the revealing nuances and context of this giant of the 19th
> century. There is special sensitivity to Livingstone because, like
> Livingstone, Ross is also a Scot and served as a missionary in Africa.
> His impressive knowledge of Africa and its history serve the reader
> well in grappling with both the facts and implications of what
> Livingstone did. His research is thorough and objective, while his
> portrayal is winsome and inspiring. This book is necessary for an
> accurate understanding of Livingstone. Reading it is a delightful
> experience!

Five Alive: Christian Heroes (Rocket Readers, Set 8)

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Five Alive: Christian Heroes (Rocket Readers, Set 8)
Peggy Wilber , and Marianne Hering
Manufacturer: Cook Communications Ministries (CO)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0781438624

Book Description

Launch emergent readers into the wonderful world of Christian Heroes through this comprehensive reading program.

Level 2 books teach letter combinations and more sight words. Use Rocket Reader Level 2 if your child: uses phonic skills, knows consonant blends, and knows common vowel combinations.

Books in this Set:

1. A Lion Bite: David Livingstone is bitten by a lion in Africa

2.Got Food?: George Mueller prays and God provides breakfast for lots of children

3. Run Sam Run: Samuel Morris escapes from his persecutors

4. Sing a Song: Gladys Aylward helps orphans

5. Flea Bites: Corrieten Boom doesn't get caught

David Livingstone (English men of action)

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David Livingstone (English men of action)
Thomas Hughes
Manufacturer: MacMillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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David Livingstone (Great Explorers)
Frances Freedman
Manufacturer: World Almanac Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Africa | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0836850157

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David Livingstone (Pocket Biographies)
C.S. Nicholls
Manufacturer: Sutton Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

In 1854 David Livingstone was acclaimed a hero for his discovery of the Victoria Falls. He had been able to map much of central Africa's waterways, but his later journeys appeared to be failures, although they provided the western world with vivid descriptions of the hitherto unknown interior of Africa. In 1871 the New York Herald sent one of its journalists, Henry Stanley, to find him, leading to one of the most famous meetings in exploration history. This biography provides an account of Livingstone's life, from his humble beginnings in Scotland, and his struggle to gain medical qualifications, to his employment with the London Missionary Society and his search for the source of the Nile.

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David Livingstone, explorer, missionary
Basil Miller
Manufacturer: Zondervan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007HMCAW

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David Livingstone, Explorer-Missionary
Basil Miller
Manufacturer: Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1941
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NX6FAS

David Livingstone,: Missionary explorer of Africa

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David Livingstone,: Missionary explorer of Africa
Jessie Kleeberger
Manufacturer: Warner Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B00085KZ8O

Customer Reviews:

philosophy.......1999-10-25

This book discusses the philosophical basis of National Socialism, as a rejection of principles common in Western thought since the Renaissance. It focusses on the intended nature of relations of Germans among themselves, rather than the usual emphasis on relations between the German people and enemies of the state. The role of the Junkerschule Tolz in furthering this philosophy is discussed, along with a brief discussion of military training at Junkerschule Tolz. There is a nice collection of photographs of the Junkerschule Tolz.

Amazon.com

David Brock made his name (and big money) by trashing Anita Hill as "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty." But it was Brock's reporting that was nutty and slutty, he confesses in the riveting memoir Blinded by the Right. He absolves Hill; claims he helped Clarence Thomas threaten another witness into backing down; portrays a ghastly right-wing Clinton-bashing conspiracy of hypocrites, zillionaires, and maniacs; and accuses himself of being "a witting cog in the Republican sleaze machine." Now Brock is sliming his former fellows--everyone from the lawyer who argued the Bush v. Gore case to gonzo pundits Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham ("the only person I knew who didn't appear to own a book or regularly read a newspaper") to Matt Drudge and Tom Wolfe. Brock excoriates the gay hypocrites of the right wing, including himself, and tells how he cleverly spun his own outing. (He calls himself "the only openly gay conservative in the country," evidently forgetting about the far more open and famous Andrew Sullivan.)

If Brock says he was a liar for much of his life, how do we know he's not lying now? Blinded by the Right is less addicted to anonymous and third-hand sources than the madcap character assassinations that made him famous, and it is infinitely more plausible. But that doesn't make it necessarily true. (Anita Hill's lawyer has acidly observed that Brock confessed his Hill-related lies after seven years, when the statute of limitations prevents suing for slander.) Dumped by the right after he wrote a non-hatchet-job book on Hillary Clinton, Brock profits by running to the arms of the center and left. But that doesn't make this book untrue. All I can tell you is you'll have to read it and decide for yourself. And I'll bet you'll admit this mea-culpa memoir has the revolting, irresistible fascination of a bad car wreck. --Tim Appelo

Book Description

In a powerful and deeply personal memoir in the tradition of Arthur Koestler’s The God That Failed, David Brock, the original right-wing scandal reporter, chronicles his rise to the pinnacle of the conservative movement and his painful break with it.

David Brock pilloried Anita Hill in a bestseller. His reporting in The American Spectator as part of the infamous “Arkansas Project” triggered the course of events that led to the historic impeachment trial of President Clinton. Brock was at the center of the right-wing dirty tricks operation of the Gingrich era–and a true believer–until he could no longer deny that the political force he was advancing was built on little more than lies, hate, and hypocrisy.

In Blinded By the Right, Brock, who came out of the closet at the height of his conservative renown, tells his riveting story from the beginning, giving us the first insider’s view of what Hillary Rodham Clinton called “the vast right-wing conspiracy.” Whether dealing with the right-wing press, the richly endowed think tanks, Republican political operatives, or the Paula Jones case, Brock names names from Clarence Thomas on down, uncovers hidden links, and demonstrates how the Republican Right’s zeal for power created the poisonous political climate that culminated in George W. Bush’s election.

Now in paperback and with a new afterword by the author, Blinded By the Right is a classic political memoir of our times.

Customer Reviews:

A jaw-dropper and a must read for the 2008 elections.......2007-04-02

There isn't much I can say about this book that hasn't already been said in other favorable reviews here. All I'll add is that even if you allow for the zeal of Brock's re-converson to liberal prinicples and some bitterness towards his former conservative and neocon mentors and paymasters, there is much in this book that rings frighteningly true. Most fascinating is Brock's inside look at the anti-Clinton smear machine of which he was part - and which, no doubt, is warming up for 2008. Arm yourself with knowledge that you'll need if Hillary runs for President. Read this book.

pseudo-conservatives.......2006-09-30

In his 1950 study of the authoritarian personality, Theodor Adorno constructed a political-psychological profile of people he called "pseudo-conservatives." These were people who called themselves conservatives but in truth adhered to political agendas that betrayed the ideals of individual freedom and free markets. Pseudo-conservatives were motivated by hate, fear, and power, not the desire to conserve or guarantee liberty. A few years later, the eminent historian Richard Hofstadter appropriated Adorno's term in describing what he called "the paranoid style in American politics." In Adorno and Hofstadter's day, this paranoid style of pseudo-conservativism was still in its embryonic state, personified by the rantings of Joseph McCarthy but still far from being the game plan for the Republican Party as a whole. David Brock's Blinded by the Right chronicles how this movement slithered its way into power long before anyone had heard of Karl Rove, whose name isn't even listed in the index.

Blinded by the Right amazingly combines the political history of a loathsome political movement with the personal story of a sympathetic individual who found himself at the center of that movement. Always an idealist among opportunists, Brock's entrée to conservatism was admirable enough, as he was a former Kennedy liberal who was turned off by Berkeley protest-ologists who simply shouted down their adversaries, thus betraying the cause of free speech that had galvanized the campus in the glory years of the 1960s. But those ideals quickly dissolved into an us-versus-them battle which was motivated by a hatred for liberal enemies more than anything else. Ironically, Brock and his colleagues had much more in common with late 60s revolutionaries like the Weathermen, with their constantly escalating rhetoric of destroying the establishment, and Stalinists in the Communist Party, who enforced the party line by threatening dissenters with the charge that they were helping "the other team."

Blinded by the Right is an essential chronicle of a political movement and a historical era, but somehow it is even more than that. Its personal narrative of a young person's rise to power and fame, followed by descent into disillusionment and depression, is gripping enough for Hollywood. Brock came out as a homosexual while he was in college but then shoved himself back into the closet as he ascended to celebrity status on the Right, whose agenda became increasingly homophobic after the collapse of communism left them without the enemy they had depended on for so long. Brock now sees his willingness to parrot right-wing ideology as part of his attempt to fit in with the movement when he secretly knew didn't, and he sees the vitriol that he spewed in his writing as a subconscious expression of his own self-hatred. In fact, Brock offers many penetrating insights into the psychology of his right-wing former colleagues, and for the most part they appear to be a miserable bunch prone to textbook cases of projection.

Brock's break from the right corresponded with his personal move toward self-acceptance. It is heroic act of liberation that sometimes made me want to stand up and cheer for him, but it was clearly a journey full of pain. His liberation proceeds in stages, with Brock initially portraying himself as a victim, and then only later coming to grips with his own complicity and eagerness to serve the movement. Changed but not bitter, Brock comes out the other side as a very wise man who can see clearly now only because he is able to accept himself, his past, and his imperfections. I hope we'll see more books like this in the future coming from the current throng of right-wingers, but I'm not holding my breath, because this required a ton of courage and compassion, and that's precisely what this movement lacks most.

Interesting mea culpa.......2006-08-03

After hearing about this book a great deal from many people, I finally had to give it a read. What I got was a mostly well written account about how Brock gave the neo-con movement exactly what they wanted in terms of what can only be called propaganda. Brock does a good job in exposing the oft-ridiculed "vast right-wing conspiracy".

But it makes a boring read at times, what with long lists of people and publications. And it seems just a bit self-serving at times, like he is trying to say, "Oh, how bad I was to do all this, but I was very good at it." And, after all, he does say exactly what I, as a liberal person, want to hear about those on the right who keep insisting that people who believe like me are traitors.

I respect Mr. Brocks conversion to the left, and I like his work with mediamatters.org, but I am not sure I plan to read any more of his books.

There is a constitutional right to hate.......2006-07-27

This book is a terrible exposure of the powers behind the (extreme) right in the US, of their methods, of their foot-folk and their `morals'.
The powers are the fundamentalist Christian Right, extreme wealthy families and corporate interest. Those powers are firmly anchored in the Republican Party.
Their means are disgusting smear campaigns, vulgar attacks on political opponents, totally biased reporting, in one word `whournalism'.
Their working method are `see what you are supposed to see', `turn a blind eye to facts that do not suit your political aims' and `paper over monstrous moral wrongs in the service of the perceived morality of your cause'.

Their foot-folk are members of think-tanks, media men, investigators, journalists, intelligence personnel. The author considered himself as a right-wing hit-man, profiting hugely from his totally biased or completely fabricated scribbles.

This book unveils the raw selfishness, the protection of sinister (Bertrand Russell) interests (`cutting taxes to defund the left') and the blatant hypocrisy and hidden opportunism of many of the members of these groups (`a decadent and hypocritical conservative elite, leading public and private lives that bore little resemblance to each other').

This book exposes relentlessly huge monuments of vulgarity and ghastly political horror stories.
It gives a terrible picture of extremely powerful political groups within the US society.
Not for the faint-hearted.

REDEMPTION FOR CRIMES AGAINST THE TRUTH?.......2006-07-16

David Brock's memoir, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative, made the New York Times Best Seller list, landing the author on Good Morning America and other prime time television shows. In sixteen chapters with names like "Leninists of the Right," "A Counter-Intelligentsia," and "Strange Lie," the 378-page mea culpa names many familiar right-wing names, enumerating the wicked behavior of Brock's erstwhile politically "conservative" accomplices. His public soul searching caused me to free associate Brock's with a similar fascinating memoir published in Poland by Otto von Hoess in 1947. von Hoess similarly asked his readers for understanding and sought redemption for his wrongdoing -- after the fact. Because of its striking similarity, I'll later get back to the nearly 60 year old mea culpa.

In Blinded by the Right, Brock traces his trajectory from boyhood through a high school youth working for liberal Democrats into the inner sanctum of the most rabid right-wingers of the Republican jihad. He self psychoanalyzes his brief love fest with Kennedy liberals by juxtaposing this with his disapproving and conservative Catholic father and moderate yet secretive mother. His family's big secret is that Brock and his younger sister Regina (who the author loves very much) had been adopted. This secret, plus several others, haunts Brock through adulthood. His other secret which is much more inconvenient to hide from the world is that ever since he was eleven years old, Brock knew that he was a homosexual.

Brock's homosexuality was no problem in college because he attended the University of California at Berkeley where in the 1970s being gay was no big deal. But it was in Berkeley that Brock metamorphosed from a diehard liberal Democrat into an extreme right wing Republican. While Brock was writing for the Berkeley student newspaper, the then new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Jeanne Kirkpatrick had been scheduled to speak. But rowdy anti-Kirkpatrick students kept disrupting her speech and hounded the speaker off the podium (finally, by splashing it and the speaker with fake blood).

Struck by the hypocrisy of liberal Free-Speech-movement promoters denying a platform to a conservative speaker who they didn't like, Brock was prompted to write a scathing denunciation in the student newspaper of the students' hostile intervention. Student backlash for Brock's piece was prompt and violent. He enjoyed the fracas and decided to join the ranks of right-wing writers, repelled by what he had perceived as the phoniness of "politically correct liberalism." Notwithstanding his evolving closet homosexuality, Brock was drawn to the seemingly straightforward simplicity and clearly articulated positions of the political conservatives.

Brock traces the ascendancy of his investigative "journalistic' career through writing for the Rev. Sun Moon-owned Washington Times. While ascending through his writings for the ultra right-wing American Spectator, Brock broke bread with ideologically hardened, prominent right-wing luminaries such as Marvin Liebman, Terry Dolan, Paul Weyrich, Bill Kristol, Grover Norquist, and even gay basher David Horowitz. Because the religious right-wingers condemned all gays, Brock's shadowy lifestyle was a constant source of anxiety for fear of his discovery.

Brock really struck gold at the Spectator right after the now, ultra right-wing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had gone through a very difficult confirmation hearing because of Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment. It was Brock's assignment to write a believable smear book about Anita Hill so that Thomas could appear to have been a victim of a liberal conspiracy. Brock wrote the best selling The Real Anita Hill, which demolished Hill's testimony, credibility, and character. Later, and now in Blinded by the Right, Brock freely admitted making it all up and then neatly packaging this smear literature in an investigative journalistic package.

A similar attack on president Bill Clinton based on rumors and made-up stories of his Arkansas sex scandals started the ball rolling towards the president's eventual impeachment hearings. But at each turn of Brock's right-wing literary fusillades he got deeper into the inner sanctums of radical conservative, rich and powerful movers and shakers. But Brock's Clinton sex scandal writings are what would finally do Brock in.

Clearly, Brock didn't have a sudden epiphany of the harm his writings had done to America or that he had been serving wicked people who call themselves conservatives. Rather on page 180, Brock tells us that the Washington Post's media critic Howard Kurtz phoned him to ask about his sexuality. Presumably, a writer exposing the president's sexual waywardness can similarly be scrutinized. That petty much did it. The rest of this story is about most conservatives, especially the religious right-wingers, turning on Brock after his public outing. That's when he decided to "come clean" and admit that his written trail of smears against Anita Hill and the Clintons were lies.

When a writer like Brock loses his right-wing career, what's left for him to do?: What's left to do -- that can still earn good money -- is writing a best selling revelatory memoir, a mea culpa that names names. But what kind of harm had Brock done to America? His lies had influenced what happened in the Thomas-Hill debate and undermined a constitutional process His lies helped to stage the political assassination of a sitting American president and further divide an already badly divided and, thereby, weakened United States. His lies were extremely useful to the misanthropic ultra conservative crowd that would love to preside -- and are beginning to succeed at it with George W. Bush -- over a tyranny of the Right. After admitting all of this lying, Brock wishes us to believe that Blinded by the Right is the truth. So then concerning Brock's implicit appeal for our understanding and seeking redemption for his wrongdoing, I return to Otto von Hoess.

In 1947, von Hoess penned his bizarrely fascinating memoir "Commandant of Auschwitz" in which he freely acknowledges being responsible for the murder of two and one half million Jews. His memoir is an account of his ascension in the Nazi party first as a competent prison warden for ordinary criminals in Germany to his final post a commandant of Auschwitz. He explains how his background and historical events propelled him into that position. von Hoess pleads with the reader to understand that he is no monster but just an ordinary man placed in extraordinary circumstances.

Now clearly, Brock and von Hoess had committed very different kinds of crimes. The Nazi was hanged for crimes against humanity in Poland, right after completing his, indeed, fascinating self-searching memoir in 1947. After getting outed for being gay, Brock lost all of his right wing connections and then tried to atone for his crimes against journalism by setting the various records straight. But since both von Hoess and Brock had their revelations and admitted their guilt after having been exposed, are they entitled to our understanding and have they earned redemption for their wrongdoing?

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Blinded by the Right. The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative.
David Brock
Manufacturer: Crown Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JOJLHU

Book Description

Voyageur Naturally is your one-stop resource for books about nature and country sports. We have one of the largest selections available for both adult and young adult and readers. Zoos and aquariums, natural history museums, gift shops, sporting book retailers, and other booksellers all appreciate the depth and quality of our series and our commitment to providing up-to-date information from leading naturalists and scientists.

Average customer rating:

Slam dunk ripping yarn
Good read
wow!

A Grizzly Way To Die
James Corwin
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Action & Adventure | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

Suspense | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 059533928X

Book Description

Some people seem to attract trouble the way a dark blue suit attracts lint.

Ron Grizwald, former Marine and Game Warden, just wants to start his life over in the hills of Napa county. That's when Arnold Williams, corporate raider and timber boss, shows up with a job offer--to infiltrate a group of eco-terrorists. It's an offer that down-on-his luck Griz can't refuse.

Once he gets there, nothing is what it seems to be, leaving Griz struggling to find out who the bad guys really are. But when one man pits his wilderness skills against a high-tech private army, when your best friend is often your worst enemy, it takes a special kind of man who can walk out alive.

Download Description

Some people seem to attract trouble the way a dark blue suit attracts lint.

Ron Grizwald, former Marine and Game Warden, just wants to start his life over in the hills of Napa county. That

Customer Reviews:

Slam dunk ripping yarn.......2007-10-12

From start to finish this book moves like a panther. I couldn't put it down, but I am a sucker for an underdog adventure story. This could be a Die Hard plot, if ever there was one.

Good read.......2005-09-01

I found A GRIZZLY WAY TO DIE to be an engaging story, well told and full of surprises. Author James Corwin captured my interest from the start, and before it was over I had to force myself to put this book down. I found Corwin's characters to be both strong and believable, and I was fascinated by his protagonist's expertise in the unusual skills of tracking and man-trapping. All in all, I was thoroughly entertained by this book.

wow!.......2005-07-16

If you want an action hero, this is a real one. He knows his outdoors skills and isn't afraid to use them in bloody, exciting fight for life against mechanized enemies. The author really knows his stuff. Really exciting, and the author makes it believeable.

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The Way of the Grizzly
Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
Manufacturer: Clarion Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0395581125

Book Description

A striking profile of one of North America's major symbols of the wilderness.

Grizzly bear habitat surveys, studies, and work tasks: Which way now?

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Grizzly bear habitat surveys, studies, and work tasks: Which way now?
Ronald E. F Escano
Manufacturer: USDA Forest Service, Region 1
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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THE WAY OF THE GRIZZLY [H2]
D. & W. Munoz Patent
Manufacturer: Clarion Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000WP5670

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