The Downfall of the Dervishes or, The Avenging of Gordon

Bennett, Ernest Nathaniel, 1868-1947Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
400K words
Chapters
41

Tags

English Originals World HistoryMilitary Historical ReappraisalImperial Rise and FallMilitary StrategyColonial WarsSudan CampaignAdventure JourneyMilitary CommandersHeroismDocumentary NarrativeExotic Culture

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.The Downfall of the Dervishes; or, The Avenging of Gordon by BennettAuthor: Bennett, Ernest Nathaniel, 1868-1947,Language: English, Class: DT: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Africa, Release Date: Mar 21, 2016

Editor's review

This book centers on the late-nineteenth-century situation in Sudan and British imperial military operations. "Dervishes" in the title refers to the Mahdist forces in Sudan at the time, and "the avenging of Gordon" points to the British narrative frame. The author, Ernest Bennett, had experience with the army, and his writing carries battlefield observation and an imperial perspective; it narrates the course of campaigns and also records terrain, supply, and personnel conditions, serving as English primary material for understanding the conflict in northeastern Africa during this period. Its reading value lies in showing how British officers of the time understood this war: confident in tone, direct in judgment, and carrying obvious period stance and imperial discourse. Read today, it must be treated simultaneously as historical source and as text, with attention to its narrative angle and selectivity. Readers interested in military history, colonial history, and late-nineteenth-century international relations can gain detail and immediacy from it; general readers should read it alongside modern research works to avoid a single narrative. The public-domain e-book is convenient for searching and excerpting.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. First read the introduction or opening chapter to grasp the author's stance, then enter the campaign narrative, noting his diction tendencies.
  2. Read with maps and a timeline to clarify the sequence of the Sudanese situation and British operations.
  3. Compare with a modern general history work and mark the parts the author omits or avoids.
  4. Excerpt sentences with evaluative coloring and analyze how imperial narrative constructs "justice" and "revenge."

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.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41

FAQ

What do the "Dervishes" in the title refer to? They refer to the Mahdist movement in Sudan at the time and its followers, often called "Dervishes" in British documents. This term itself carries the European perspective of the time, and readers should note its stance coloring.
Is this book suitable for history beginners? Not very suitable as the only starting point. It provides on-site detail and period tone but lacks modern scholarly annotation and multi-perspective comparison; beginners should first read a general history, then use this book to supplement primary material.
Do I need to prepare a map when reading? It is advisable. The book involves Sudanese place names, march routes, and battle locations, and a map significantly improves understanding; otherwise one easily loses the thread among people and places.

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About the author

Bennett, Ernest Nathaniel, 1868-1947 Author · British · 1868–1947

Ernest Nathaniel Bennett (1868–1947) was a British journalist and politician. Public information about him is limited, and many details of his life remain obscure. Judging from the two works held in the collection, his writing centres largely on British military campaigns in the Sudan: With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train records marches and medical treatment as observed aboard an ambulance train accompanying the troops, while The Downfall of the Dervishes or, The Avenging of Gordon narrates the British campaign against the Dervish regime in the Sudan. Combining the roles of journalist and politician, he travelled and reported in the Middle East and elsewhere, giving his works a marked quality of on-the-spot observation and documentary record that offers a first-hand account of British colonial military activity of the period.