Livingstone--explorer and abolitionist lost diary missing diary--found but unreadable cleaned up diaries a bit about massacre--I am sure this happened a lot his explorations led to imperialism interesting how they cleaned up diary pages no saint but helped end slave trade
Today, Dr. David Livingstone is a name few would recall here in the States. While he's well remembered in the UK, I have no idea--but for Americans and other folks not familiar with his work, this documentary is worth seeing.
Livingstone was a famous explorer who helped to open up Africa to Europeans due to his years spent mapping the interior of the continent. While the show talks about this, its main thrust is on the man's involvement in ending the slave trade by exposing its abuses to those outside Africa. However, researchers portrayed in the show want to re- examine his account of a huge massacre perpetrated by slavers and their men. The problem was to find his original notes and then, once they were found, to understand them because they were written on newspapers using berry juice--I kid you not!
The show was well done and interesting. My only quibble was that they talked as if it was a big surprise that the Doctor edited and re-framed his account to make himself seem a bit nicer than he might have been. However, this sort of thing seems pretty easy to believe about him and other primary sources. Heck, it probably happened all the time that writers framed things to make themselves look better...duh! Still, interesting and worth seeing.
Today, Dr. David Livingstone is a name few would recall here in the States. While he's well remembered in the UK, I have no idea--but for Americans and other folks not familiar with his work, this documentary is worth seeing.
Livingstone was a famous explorer who helped to open up Africa to Europeans due to his years spent mapping the interior of the continent. While the show talks about this, its main thrust is on the man's involvement in ending the slave trade by exposing its abuses to those outside Africa. However, researchers portrayed in the show want to re- examine his account of a huge massacre perpetrated by slavers and their men. The problem was to find his original notes and then, once they were found, to understand them because they were written on newspapers using berry juice--I kid you not!
The show was well done and interesting. My only quibble was that they talked as if it was a big surprise that the Doctor edited and re-framed his account to make himself seem a bit nicer than he might have been. However, this sort of thing seems pretty easy to believe about him and other primary sources. Heck, it probably happened all the time that writers framed things to make themselves look better...duh! Still, interesting and worth seeing.
