Life on the Congo

Bentley, W. Holman (William Holman), 1855-1905Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2
Word count
129K words
Chapters
13

Tags

English Originals Historical Geography Human GeographyMissionary JourneyColonial HistoryNature ObservationAfrican ExplorationDocumentary NarrativeCongo LifeExotic CultureFolk CustomsCross-Cultural View

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.Life on the Congo by W. Holman BentleyAuthor: Bentley, W. Holman (William Holman), 1855-1905,Language: English, Class: DT: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Africa, Release Date: Apr 25, 2019

Editor's review

Written by W. Holman Bentley, a missionary who came to China in the late 19th century, Life on the Congo is a firsthand English-language source on the natural and human landscape of the Congo region. Having long been active in the Congo River basin, the author records local geography, the customs of its inhabitants, language, and social organization from an eyewitness perspective, offering detailed observation while also bearing the imprint of a Western observer's views of that era. As a free Project Gutenberg ebook, it is easy to search and cite, making it suitable as supplementary reading for courses on African history, colonial history, and missionary studies. It is best read as a historical source rather than a modern ethnography: on the one hand, specific observations can be extracted; on the other, readers should remain critical of the author's stance and phrasing and read it alongside postcolonial studies and general histories of the Congo for a more solid understanding.

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and introduction first to establish the author's range of activity and period of record, then select chapters for close reading
  2. Mark passages reflecting period prejudice while reading and compare them with postcolonial scholarship
  3. Organize folkloric and geographical details into cards as material for papers or talks
  4. Consult a map of the Congo River basin beforehand to build spatial awareness and reduce reading difficulty

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

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English? How demanding is it? The original is in English, released free by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain ebook. The text has the written style and missionary vocabulary of the late 19th century; the vocabulary is not especially difficult, but sentences tend to be long. University-level English reading ability is recommended, along with maps and background material.
Can the accounts in the book still be taken as factual reference today? They can serve as historical observations and source material, but should not be taken directly as contemporary fact. The author had the limitations of his time and position, and his descriptions of local society mix in personal judgments. Read alongside general histories of the Congo and postcolonial scholarship, distinguishing observation from value judgment.
How can I get this book? Can I cite it? It can be searched and downloaded free on the Project Gutenberg website by title or author, commonly in plain text and ebook formats. The book is in the public domain and can generally be quoted freely, but academic writing should still cite the author, title, and source version properly.

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About the author

Bentley, W. Holman (William Holman), 1855-1905 Author

W. Holman Bentley (William Holman, 1855–1905) was a missionary and writer active in the Congo region in the late nineteenth century, best known for Life on the Congo. Public information about his nationality, education and detailed biography is limited, and no fuller record is available here. Judging from his surviving work, Bentley spent considerable time in the interior of Central Africa, and his writing draws on firsthand observation. His style is plain and concrete, attentive to everyday life, local customs and language, and to the observation of missionary activity. Such writing gave contemporary English readers firsthand material about the Congo interior and left later researchers a useful textual reference for the region's society and culture. His output was small, but his work has some documentary value in early writing on Central Africa and is often cited as a source for understanding nineteenth-century Congolese society.