Death & hubris in west Africa: how two British expeditions met with disaster
Dane Kennedy discusses two ill-fated British expeditions that aimed to explore the interior of West Africa in the early 19th century, but ended in catastrophe
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Show Notes
In the early 19th century, two different British expeditions headed into the interior of West Africa – and both ended in disaster. But what was driving the expeditions, and why were they so ill-prepared? Speaking to Elinor Evans, Dane Kennedy, author of Mungo Park's Ghost shares the tale of the ill-fated missions, and explores the wider story of British exploration of the continent.
(Ad) Dane Kennedy is the author of Mungo Park's Ghost: The Haunted Hubris of British Explorers in Nineteenth-Century Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2024). Buy it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mungo-Parks-Ghost-Explorers-Nineteenth-Century/dp/1009392980/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty
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