Product Description

An extraordinary, passionate and personal journey into Africa's past. 'The most enthralling account out of Africa for years.' Daily Mail. '"Livingstone's Tribe" is excellent!Taylor is an intelligent and stimulating companion.' Financial Times 'At the book's heart is a riveting examination of Livingstone's tribe!the whites of post-independence Africa.' Independent on Sunday 'Taylor's expedition into the interior of the continent's colonial past has got everything that such a book should have.' Guardian 'Stephen Taylor, a third-generation emigre of British descent, finds a melancholy collection of white misfits and failures!as well as a heroic, dwindling clutch of missionaries still holding the line. The catalogue of theft, corruption, murder and superstition that Taylor chronicles makes appalling, fascinating reading. Yet Taylor is no Colonel Blimp, rather an anti-apartheid liberal who fled the old South Africa and welcomed independence for Mugabe's Zimbabwe.' Daily Mail 'Sights and travel experiences are vividly described and people both from Livingstone's and from the other tribes are handled particularly well.' Sunday Times

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #365038 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Stephen Taylor grew up a white South African until, "sickened by the dour resentful racists" in charge of his country's destiny, he emigrated to Britain. "Livingstone's Tribe" traces a fascinating journey he took from Zanzibar in Eastern Africa through Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and back down to his former home, South Africa. The title refers to the white Africans who have stayed on in post-independence Africa-- but Taylor meets and talks with a wide range of both white and black Africans.

The book is part travelogue (Taylor describes the wonders he encounters), part historical accounts of whites in Africa (the "great explorers" of the 19th century are very well covered) and part personal memoir of black and white Africa--a place that's far from black and white in the moral sense, Taylor powerfully argues. Throughout his journey Taylor is sensitive to ambiguity, a quality that's rare in travel writing. His Kenya, for instance, captures both the lyrical beauty of Karen Blixen's Out of Africa and "the other Kenya, of state-sanctioned murder and glue-sniffing street children." Taylor grew up as a white South African, but his English provenance set him apart from both the natives and the Afrikaners. He is conscious of being marginal to Africa in a way that neither of these cultures is, and that self-consciousness gives his writing a subtlety and penetration lacking in other work on the same topic. The passages in which Taylor reflects on his childhood in South Africa, giving lucid insights into the divisions of that country, are the real triumph of the book. --Adam Roberts

About the Author
Stephen Taylor was born in South Africa in 1948 and grew up near Johannesburg. At the age of twenty-two he made his home in Britain and travelled for four years in the Middle East and South Asia. From 1980-1987 he was foreign correspondent for The Times and the Observer based in Africa, South East Asia and Australia. Both his previous books have had African subjects, including Shaka's Children: a History of the Zulu People. He works for The Times and is married with two children.

Customer Reviews

Intriguing glimpse of Modern Day Africa
I was fascinated by this book. It looks at the attitudes of people who have weathered the storm of independence in ex-colonies. As someone who is visiting Africa for the first time, I am intrigued by the people, politics and history of this continent, and this book echoed much of what I have learnt. A thoroughly good read.