Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1459840 in Books
• Published on: 1983-05
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

Absorbing history
This book deals with history and culture along the Nile from 1798 to 1868 whilst the author's other book The White Nile explores the history from 1856 to 1900. Both books are masterpiecs of history, geography and ethnography. The Blue Nile chronicles events on the Nile from Ethiopia through Sudan to the sea but also deals with European history in the way it impacted on the Nile and the areas under discussion. It is an impressive resource of the events, the personalities involved and the people groups of this vast region.

Part One: Reconnaissance, opens with a description of Lake Tana in the highlands of Ethiopia. Although the lake is considered the primary source of the Blue Nile, the Little Abbai river which flows from the Ghis Abbai swamp is the largest tributary to Lake Tana. Where it leaves the lake, the river is called the Big Abbai. The author descibed the landscape of the highlands, the Tissat Falls about 20 miles beyond the lake and the desolate Blue Nile gorge as the river winds down the highlands to Sudan. This section also investigates the exploits of explorer James Bruce in Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. He was the first European to reach the source of the river.

Part Two: The French in Egypt, discusses the political situation in Europe in the 1790s and the background to Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. There are detailed descriptions of the preparations and the condition of Egypt at the time with discussions of Mamluke rule and the leader Murad. The French moved as far south as Aswan and completed the conquest by October 1799. Then the English destroyed their fleet and they were trapped in Egypt.

Part Three: The Turks In The Sudan, takes up the history from 1801 when the English and the Turks defeated the French and narrates the rise of Muhammad Ali, an Albanian Turk who took control of Egypt and destroyed the remnants of the Mamlukes. The life and travels of the great explorer James Lewis Burkhart are investigated here. He was a most reliable and observant traveller who wrote about all aspects of life along the river. It was in this time that the city of Khartoum was founded.

Part Four: The British In Ethiopia, chronicles the situation in Ethiopia under Emperor Theodore. He held some Europeans hostage so a British expeditionary force under Napier was sent to rescue the prisoners. The trials and tribulations of the force are discussed in great detail. The Magdala campaign eventually led to the collapse of the Ethiopian empire as it then existed and the land split into areas controlled by war-lords.

In the Epilogue, Moorehead points out that the aforementioned events finally ended the isolation of the Nile valley from Lake Tana to the sea and that these countries would never be the same again. He also provides a description of Lake Tana at the time of the book's publication. The Blue Nile contains a map and a section on Sources, arranged by chapter and with comments by the author. The book concludes with an index. It is a most illuminating and engaging work. I highly recommend The White Nile by the same author, where the narrative continues up to the year 1900.