River of Gods

By Candice Millard

River of the Gods is the fourth book by Candice Millard.  She is a superb historian and writer.  Her first three books included:

River of Doubt.  The Story of Theodore Roosevelt’s Near Fatal Journey in the Amazon Jungle.

Death to the Republic.  Her superb history of the under-appreciated James Garfield.

Hero of the Empire.  The story of the young Winston Churchill’s imprisonment and escape in South Africa during the Boer War.

Having read these three books I had high expectations for her next book.  River of the Gods, subtitled Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile is her account of the search for the source of the Nile in the nineteenth century.

The book focuses around two Brits, Richard Burton and John Speke.  These were men who journeyed together from Zanzibar, off the east coast of Africa, into the interior of Africa, looking for the source of the Nile.  They began as colleagues but over time they became enemies.  Speke would later make a journey without Burton.

These were not good men.  They were courageous.  But they also were men full of pride and self-centeredness.

I was expecting more from the book.  Perhaps because I have read about this search in the past it simply was not as fascinating to me. But perhaps because neither of the two protagonists, Burton or Speke, were virtuous men of character, the book grew tiring.

Though the search for the source of the Nile was enormously important in the nineteenth century, Millard failed to make a cogent case of why it was so important.

Unlike her previous three books, this book was good, but not outstanding.