Ismailia

Sir Samuel White BakerProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 1.2M words
Chapters: 119

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Ismailia by Sir Samuel White BakerAuthor: Baker, Samuel White, Sir, 1821-1893,Language: English, Class: DT: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Africa, Release Date: Jan 1, 2003

Editor's review

This book is Sir Samuel White Baker's account of the Ismailia region, classified under African history and geography and released by Project Gutenberg as a free eBook. Its value lies not in a systematic general history but in the first-hand observations of a nineteenth-century European explorer in Africa: records of the upper Nile, the Sudanese borderlands, their terrain, produce, peoples, and daily life, marked by the distinctive perspective and personal tone of their era. Readers can see both the narrative conventions of colonial-era exploration writing and, through concrete scenes, the imagination and cognitive limits of the period's view of inner Africa. The text is in the original English, and its length and chapters suit segmented reading; it is best studied alongside maps or related historical background. It serves as supplementary material for African history, travel literature, and imperial history, and can also be read and noted at leisure by those interested in Victorian exploration narratives. Note that the views expressed belong to their time and should be read with a critical eye.

Who it's for

A good fit for

University teachers and students researching African history and colonial-era travel writing
General readers interested in Victorian exploration narratives
English majors needing original English materials for textual analysis
Travel literature enthusiasts who like reading geographical accounts alongside maps

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking a systematic general history of Africa or a survey of modern research
Beginning readers who struggle with English and need a Chinese translation
Readers expecting a complete narrative structure rather than scattered observations

Reading tips

Start with the publication information and chapter titles to grasp the book's geographical scope and order of account.
Prepare a map of the upper Nile and the Sudan region to locate places mentioned as you read.
Mark passages reflecting the prejudices of the era and examine them against colonial history research afterward.
The original English can be read chapter by chapter each day; skip unfamiliar place names at first to keep the overall pace.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English?

The main text is in the original English, released by Project Gutenberg as a free eBook. Chinese readers need some English reading ability or reference works and translations for support.

Is the content historical research or travel observations?

It is closer to an explorer's first-hand account, first-hand observations under African history and geography rather than a systematic general history in the modern academic sense; read it as a historical source and narrative text.

What background knowledge is needed for reading?

Knowledge of nineteenth-century European exploration and colonization in Africa and the geography of the upper Nile helps. For casual reading, maps and chapter titles can first establish a basic framework.

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About the author

Sir Samuel White Baker Author · British · 1821–1893

Sir Samuel White Baker (1821–1893) was a British explorer. He was born in London in 1821 and died in Devon in 1893. From 1846 he lived in Ceylon for eight years, an experience later recorded in Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon and The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon. In 1861 he went to Africa to search for the source of the Nile, discovered Lake Albert in 1864, and was knighted in 1866. His expeditions are described in works such as The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, The Albert N'Yanza, and Ismailia. His writing combines geographical exploration with hunting narratives, drawn largely from his own travels; in later years he continued to set down his observations in Africa and Cyprus.