Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart

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Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart

by Tim Butcher (Goodreads Author)

3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 · rating details · 2,095 ratings · 277 reviews

A compulsively readable account of a journey to the Congo — a country virtually inaccessible to the outside world — vividly told by a daring and adventurous journalist.

Ever since Stanley first charted its mighty river in the 1870s, the Congo has epitomized the dark and turbulent history of a failed continent. However, its troubles only served to increase the interest of Da...more

Paperback, 384 pages

Published January 3rd 2008 by Vintage (first published July 3rd 2007)

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Feb 10, 2012 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: africa

Note :

Tim Butcher is officially a diamond geezer. He's just joined Goodreads and read my review below and still sent me a thank you message today. Rereading the below review, I think some authors could have taken umbrage because, well, it's actually quite cheeky. The word pompous is used. Some fun is poked. Given some of the frankly unsavoury, if not downright ugly, author/reviewer encounters there have been on this site, I therefore salute Tim.

***

A BOOK WHICH DESERVES TWO REVIEWS – FIRST, THE...more

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Oct 20, 2011 Lars rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: travel, africa

I love travelogues. And I am very interested in Africa and its history. Therefore, I was very curious for this book which describes one of the most challenging travels in contemporary Africa: Starting at Lake Tanganjika and ending at the Atlantic Ocean where the river Congo completes his journey of thousands of kilometers. I was very impressed by the speed the author managed to finish his journey. It took him about six weeks – a real sprint compared to the man who went this way first, Henry Mort...more I love travelogues. And I am very interested in Africa and its history. Therefore, I was very curious for this book which describes one of the most challenging travels in contemporary Africa: Starting at Lake Tanganjika and ending at the Atlantic Ocean where the river Congo completes his journey of thousands of kilometers. I was very impressed by the speed the author managed to finish his journey. It took him about six weeks – a real sprint compared to the man who went this way first, Henry Morton Stanley, who was underway for nearly three years. I was a little bit disappointed that Butcher travelled about one fifth of his way with a helicopter because he was ill after one week on board of a vessel sailing down the river Congo. I travelled in Africa too, and I know how exhausting this can be, but somehow I expected a tougher traveler writing a book like this. When faced with the devastating situation in Congo, Butcher seems to long for the end of his journey all the time. This is bad for his book, because he almost never stays at one place for a longer time and fails to connect with the people there. Everything is a fast race through the heart of the continent.

Another point I didn't like much is that Butcher emphasizes all the time that Congo is a failed state. That's certainly true, but overall, he just joins Joseph Conrad in his famous words 'The Horror! The Horror!' The author comes to the conclusion that a combination of the consequences of colonialism and the inability of African leaders to rule just and successful for all the people makes the Congo as broken as it is today. Again, this is certainly no false point, but that's the conclusion after six weeks in Congo? At least for me, this information wasn't new and I wished Butcher would have been able to bring some new point of view in my mind. If you like to inform yourself about Congo now, the book surely is quite interesting. For me, the work lacks an 'Aha!'-effect. Butcher seemed to be continuously on the run. I wish he had dared to spend some more time in Congo, presenting the reader a deeper experience than he finally did.(less)

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Jul 31, 2008 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: DRC workers

Recommended to Sarah by: Noel

Shelves: travel, non-fiction, 2008-reads, africa

I read this book on the airplane during my epic 42 hour flight from Papua New Guinea to South Carolina. It kept my attention despite my incredible fatigue and anxiety. But I had mixed feelings about it.

At first, it annoyed the hell out of me. He kept going on and on about his fear and how scary the Congo is. The Congo is scary. However, the people in the Congo are amongst some of the most amazingly friendly, hospital, and cheerful helpful people in Africa. While he gradually did give some shout...more I read this book on the airplane during my epic 42 hour flight from Papua New Guinea to South Carolina. It kept my attention despite my incredible fatigue and anxiety. But I had mixed feelings about it.

At first, it annoyed the hell out of me. He kept going on and on about his fear and how scary the Congo is. The Congo is scary. However, the people in the Congo are amongst some of the most amazingly friendly, hospital, and cheerful helpful people in Africa. While he gradually did give some shoutouts to all the Congolese who dragged his white ass through the DRC (not unlike Stanley, his hero), it wore on me. And it annoyed me because it kept pushing the DRC back into the "heart of darkness" trope that so many love to use.

But then again, I'm not really surprised at his fear at the same time- the DRC is one of the most frustratingly difficult environments to work in. The portraits of the wiped out aid workers, the cynical UN employees, and the priests and nuns who keep the place functioning, reminded me of the people i met while I was there. I didn't go to all the places he went - I was in Kissangani, Bunia in Ituri (scene of one of the worst massacres that drove UN soldiers mad), Bukavu, and Goma. And while I wasn't on the back of a motorbike, I did travel through hostile land in an unarmed convoy and take a treacherous boat ride that lost one boat to a storm to deliver things to some internally displaced people there. It wasn't all roaring around in UN helicopters.

The part that moved me the most was his conversation with the Malaysian UN boat captain. It summarized to me the frustration that all of us humanitarian and development workers have with the Congo - its got everything you would need to be a great country. Its got natural resources, natural beauty, charming and beautiful people, and smart wily people. Yet somehow, it seems to get worse and worse. It burns out the do gooders and limps along. Why is that? So I guess in the end, I enjoyed the book and felt it did, in some small way contribute to my understanding of the country - in its rich history, if nothing else. (less)

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Jan 26, 2008 Alex rated it 3 of 5 stars

Journalist Tim Butcher makes the improbable journey overland from the Great Lakes to the Congo River and down to the coast in 2004, as the various wars in the Congo continued sporadically despite the formal end to hostilities. If you want to understand IRC's recent figure of 5.4 million excess deaths in the Congo since 1997, read this book. Butcher stumbles onto dying villages stranded in the forest as roads built in the 1950s are reclaimed by the jungle, settlements freshly burned down by milit...more

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Jan 27, 2008 Ramona Liberoff rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Congo is, as the author points out, the darkest heart of Africa-sequentially brutalised, once functional in some ways and now given over to the madness of jungles and wars. A really interesting book-the author followed in the footsteps of Livingstone and Stanley, and takes the Congo river in the face of all (significant) obstacles down to its end, at no little risk to himself. Very worth reading if you are interested in Africa-my only frustration was that it was about a dozen things at once:...more

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Jul 22, 2008 Christopher rated it 3 of 5 stars

Part of my Congo season. Story of a journey undertaken in 2004 by an English journalism from the Telegraph following in the footsteps of another Telegraph journalist HM Stanley, who traced the Congo from source to ocean in the 1870s. Give a good introductory history of the Congo, and gives some interesting insight to how this country has progressed in reverse from the 1950's, when scheduled train and boat services made the journey straightforward to the modern day, when the journey is challenged...more

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Apr 16, 2013 Louise rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: congo, africa

Tim Butcher is to be saluted for making and recording this extraordinary trip. It was every bit as dangerous as Stanley's, if not more. He faced the same diseases and supply problems as Stanley and his men. While armed enemies haunted Stanley, Mr. Butcher is vulnerable to more powerful weapons and is traveling essentially alone.

Descriptions of the former civilization are striking, especially coupled with the author's observations of time going backwards. Mr. Butcher describes hotels, roads, func...more Tim Butcher is to be saluted for making and recording this extraordinary trip. It was every bit as dangerous as Stanley's, if not more. He faced the same diseases and supply problems as Stanley and his men. While armed enemies haunted Stanley, Mr. Butcher is vulnerable to more powerful weapons and is traveling essentially alone.

Descriptions of the former civilization are striking, especially coupled with the author's observations of time going backwards. Mr. Butcher describes hotels, roads, functioning railroads and means of production from the colonial period and their present state of damage and decay. He has a deep sense of history and a keen eye for the present. He helps the reader imagine the plight of those who scramble to stay alive while natural and man made forces hold them back and the extraordinary qualities of those who can somehow maintain.

While this book is very good there was not enough of it for me. The author writes of bicycle traders, guides on land and river, UN and missionary workers and government officials, some of whom he spent a lot of time with. He usually described their encounters and something of their history or point of view. I wanted to know more. We don't know if they live in huts or houses. Do they, and all locals are men, have a wife (wives) or kids? It is not so much that they speak English or French, but it is how did they became so good at a second language or come into their positions? While Mr. Butcher spoke with female aid workers and missionaries, there is not one interview with an African woman.

Aid programs appear to be band aids on huge problems. What do these aid agencies do? From this book, they receive supplies and their staffs live in air conditioned pre-fabs. I don't remember a single description of a clinic or the dispensing of aid.

In his discussion of what went wrong, it's clear that the need for the rule of law far transcends the need for democracy. Libertarians should take note of the consequences of a weak government. In these discussions of the African continent, the stability of Botswana and Namibia are not cited.

I'm giving this book 5 stars because of the value of the author's actually doing this and putting it down and because it is so readable that I gobbled it up.
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Nov 21, 2012 Mikey B. rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a very engaging, but at the same time, disturbing story of this man’s journey on the Congo River.

Mr. Butcher gives us many moving impressions of life in this part of the world – and it is for the most part not very pretty. He meets a wide array of characters, most of who have been deeply affected by the violence and poverty in the Congo. There are many enduring images from this book. The four Africans who took him by pirogue (a type of canoe) up a part of the Congo left a very forlorn fe...more This is a very engaging, but at the same time, disturbing story of this man’s journey on the Congo River.

Mr. Butcher gives us many moving impressions of life in this part of the world – and it is for the most part not very pretty. He meets a wide array of characters, most of who have been deeply affected by the violence and poverty in the Congo. There are many enduring images from this book. The four Africans who took him by pirogue (a type of canoe) up a part of the Congo left a very forlorn feeling.

There is a disconnect between life in the Congo and the rest of the developing world. Life has regressed – the railroad adjoining the river has been taken over by the jungle and is no longer serviceable. Large boats, that were once used to transport goods and people from village to village, are decaying on river banks. If the makers of the “African Queen” were to return to the Congo they would think they had gone fifty years backwards in time instead of fifty years ahead. It would be logistically impossible to make a movie in the Congo today.

In many ways the author is fortunate to have survived his journey – he provides examples of some who did not. There is a constant threat from assorted marauding groups. Also the environment is unforgiving – the sweltering heat, the mosquitoes, lack of drinking water and of food. The author was physically exhausted towards the end of his 44 day sojourn and reluctantly took a plane to Kinshasa from Mbandaka. Many of the NGO’s and U.N. workers were counting the number of days remaining in their Congo stay. One can imagine the stamina of Stanley, the first European to traverse the African continent. It took him almost 1000 days. Also Stanley made three significant expeditions to Africa. I say this because I feel the author was unnecessarily harsh on Stanley. It was King Leopold and the Belgian colonialists who turned the Congo into a slave state. For a more sympathetic view of Stanley read Tim Jeal’s biography of the explorer.

As well I feel, Mr. Butcher paints Patrice Lumumba too optimistically as a potential saviour of the Congo (Lumumba was assassinated with U.S. complicity). Lumumba was an ineffective leader unable to get along with anybody – inside and outside of his country. He even managed to distance himself from the U.N., who were trying (way back then) to aid his newly liberated country.

Nevertheless this book is spellbinding and very readable. Mr. Butcher gives us a harrowing portrait of the life of ordinary people in the Congo. Magnificently many still have a decent sense of humanity. Mr. Butcher was most vulnerable during his trip – but all he found were those willing to help and guide him and share their food. The author is a wonderful and perceptive observer and gives us many fulfilling passages from his diverse encounters.
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Aug 31, 2012 Maru Kun rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: outer-travel

I have a theory which is that politicians often cannot do much to help a country but can certainly ruin one.

Tim Butcher's Blood River provides ample evidence for this theory and also poses two more questions: How can people live like this and how can a country fall so far?

Blood River tells us the recent history of the Congo and its descent from a wealthy and functioning country into a failed state. In the Congo the law is no more than another excuse for one group of people to arbitrarily extract...more I have a theory which is that politicians often cannot do much to help a country but can certainly ruin one.

Tim Butcher's Blood River provides ample evidence for this theory and also poses two more questions: How can people live like this and how can a country fall so far?

Blood River tells us the recent history of the Congo and its descent from a wealthy and functioning country into a failed state. In the Congo the law is no more than another excuse for one group of people to arbitrarily extract money from another group and the only true power is exercised at a local level, meaning at the barrel end of whichever party is holding the gun.

One inspiring story in a book lacking inspiring stories is where Tim meets a trader who builds his own bicycle out of wood, loads it up and pushes it along jungle trails longer than a hundred kilometers, risking death from armed gangs on the way, just to sell his goods for a few tens of dollars. What a pampered life we lead.

By coincidence I read Why Nations Fail which goes a long way to explaining the reasons for the current state of the Congo and many other developing nations. This book outlines the theory that nations become relatively poor or fail because of what the authors call "exclusive political institutions" fostering "exclusive economic institutions" that allow a politically connected elite to extract a country's wealth at the cost of those without political power

Less a theory than common sense you may think, but we in the West, in the UK and US in particular, have seen the rise of our own "exclusive political and economic institutions" in the form of Wall Street and other wealthy people with no conscience who use their money to buy influence in the media and politics and so profit from favors that the rest of us pay for. Money spent on political lobbying in the US has the returns far, far better than anything as mundane as building a factory.

There is no reason for the West to be complacent. We are a long way from the Congo but a few decades ago the Congo's citizens were living a relatively peaceful and wealthy life but then watched as the erosion of their political institutions and power grabbing by the elite pulled the country to a state of anarchy.

Regrettably the West seems to have taken a few steps down the same path that the Congo has walked already and in that sense Blood River serves as a useful warning as to where this path ends. Worryingly as Why Nations Fail explains once a society has started walking down this path it is remarkably difficult to turn back.

The Congo could be our future and we have no reason to be complacent at all.

One PS I listened to this book on Audible rather than reading at and Tim Butcher himself is the narrator, which gives it a great immediacy which I would really recommend.

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Aug 31, 2012 Booknblues rated it 5 of 5 stars

Uncovering the Heart of Darkness

To understand the essence of Africa and the wars he was covering, journalist and author, Tim Butcher conceived of a plan to follow in explorer and fellow journalist, Henry Morton Stanley’s footsteps through the Congo from Kalemie on Lake Tanganyika westward to Boma at the mouth of the Congo River. Butcher spent three years planning the trip and finally in 2004, it seemed as if the great war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had established a cease fire which...more Uncovering the Heart of Darkness

To understand the essence of Africa and the wars he was covering, journalist and author, Tim Butcher conceived of a plan to follow in explorer and fellow journalist, Henry Morton Stanley’s footsteps through the Congo from Kalemie on Lake Tanganyika westward to Boma at the mouth of the Congo River. Butcher spent three years planning the trip and finally in 2004, it seemed as if the great war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had established a cease fire which would allow travel. Blood River is the story of Butcher’s amazing journey as well as the story of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as it exists today.

Because of his vocation as a war correspondent, Butcher is aware that the DRCongo is a nation, in decline. When it gained independence the DRC, formerly known as Zaire, formerly known as the Belgian Congo according to Butcher there were, 971 kilometers or 69575 of road across the nation, but in 2004 there only remained 1000 kilometers or 621 miles left. In 1960 the DRC was the second most industrialized country in Africa, but today it is one of the least industrialized with its infrastructure eaten by the jungle and totally lacking in a rule of law, it in many ways is truly the heart of darkness. It is an unusual state, as Butcher points out which isn’t moving forward, but slipping backwayd

Yet despite this, Butcher finds within the people of the nation something heartening. He finds good people willing to assist him along his dangerous path and who are also hoping for something better in their life times, a nation where war and chaos isn’t the law of the land. In a nation where around 5 million people have died and the world didn’t blink it is heartening to find individuals go out of their way to insist one man along his quest, but at times it is also heartbreaking. One village chief talks about how his has managed to keep his people alive by vanishing into the jungle when war comes his way, much like the sisters, of Jean Hegland’s book Into the Forest did or when Oggi, a man who assisted Butcher requested

“Please, Mr. Tim, I have a huge favor to ask. My son, My four-year-old, has no future here. There is nothing for him In Kisangani. I know which way this city is going. Please will you take him with you to South Africa and give him a new life..”

As Butcher found out while there is a true heart of darkness in the Congo, there is also great heart in a country, which has among the richest resources of any country on the planet. This is a great story, that is deeply moving, deeply frustrating and a grand adventure to boot.(less)

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Apr 09, 2012 Delwij rated it 5 of 5 stars

Tim Butcher's book charts his experiences during an incredibly brave journey tracing tha path that HM Stanley took to chart the course of the great Congo River that courses through the Democratic Republic of Congo. The route that Tim takes traverses some of the most lawless and subsequently dangerous regions on the planet.

Much press reportage regarding the DRC has focussed heavily on detailing the nature of atrocities perpetrated by the various warring factions. Much of the more academic literat...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Chris Demer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: travelogue, history, adventure

I found this book difficult to put down. Part adventure and travel saga, the author seeks to travel in the footsteps of Stanley, the African explorer of the late 19th century. Over a hundred years later, he finds travel through the center of Africa as dangerous as ever. He describes the history and current status of a country that belongs to the "fourth world" where decline is the prevailing theme. From the brutality of the Belgian colonial powers to the duplicity, ignorance and greed of thievin...more

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Nov 24, 2011 Christopher Rimmer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Tim Butcher makes a perilous journey into the heart of Africa and finds it broken.

The former Daily Telegraph scribe became fascinated by H.M Stanley's crossing of the middle of Africa in 1874 and made an audacious decision to attempt to retrace Stanley's epic journey, carrying with him little more than a packet of baby-wipes and a penknife.
In doing so, he encounters a destroyed country he memorably describes as being in a state of 'undeveloping' as opposed to being undeveloped. During the journ...more Tim Butcher makes a perilous journey into the heart of Africa and finds it broken.

The former Daily Telegraph scribe became fascinated by H.M Stanley's crossing of the middle of Africa in 1874 and made an audacious decision to attempt to retrace Stanley's epic journey, carrying with him little more than a packet of baby-wipes and a penknife.
In doing so, he encounters a destroyed country he memorably describes as being in a state of 'undeveloping' as opposed to being undeveloped. During the journey he loses nearly a stone in weight and is often disorientated, sick and sometimes barely concious.
Butcher's evocation of the decay of the infrastructure built during the Belgian period, is both harrowing and compelling.
His prose is economic and lacks the emotion of Paul Therox, yet his power of observation is acute and engaging. His empathy for the people he encounters in this wrecked country, as they desperately try to cling to what remains of the old order as an antidote to the chaos and tragedy that surrounds them, is intense and moving. In one instance he recounts meeting a railway station master who diligently attends his station every day even though no train has passed in years. In Kisangani, he describes the market traders who await tourists who will never arrive.
Butcher's odyssey begins in Lake Tanganyika. He moves rapidly, riding pillion on a motorbike, through a lush and steamy landscape destroyed by war, disease and poverty, always trying to stay one step ahead of the ever present Mai Mai gunmen.
Eventually he reaches Kasongo, once described as an African version of the lost city of Atlantis, but now virtually unrecognisable as the place once visited by Evelyn Waugh in the 1950's, its buildings empty shells slowly being overtaken by the surrounding jungle. After a brief pause here, he attempts a descent of the Congo River in a traditional dugout canoe.
In truth, there is possibly little difference between the Congo encountered by Stanley in the late Nineteenth Century compared with that experienced by Butcher. The development of the Belgian colonial period, which also came at horrendous cost to the Congolese people, appears as but a blimp on a timeline that is dominated by darkness and chaos. The empty and blackening shells of its colonial period structures crumble as the graves of those who built them are are rendered invisible by the dripping vegetation.
Tim Butcher's, Blood River will not appeal to the bleeding hearts whom Paul Therox describes as the Afromantics and the Mandela sniffers, nor can I imagine the reader completing the book and feeling compelled to call their travel agent and book a ticket to Kinshasa, but the author has written a gripping and raw portrait of this terminally damaged place and in doing so has given us an African travel classic. (less)

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Nov 11, 2011 Margaret Murray rated it 5 of 5 stars

""A masterpiece," John Le Carre writes about Tim Butcher's journalistic travel memoir and I agree. Prepare for your heart to be wrenched when you read Blood River, A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart. But you may not notice it in the excitement and danger of the ride. There's the magnificent and ominous Congo River landscape, the present terror, the valor of the victimized native people, the greed of the exploiters of the river's resources (native and colonizers alike) and the intrepid European e...more ""A masterpiece," John Le Carre writes about Tim Butcher's journalistic travel memoir and I agree. Prepare for your heart to be wrenched when you read Blood River, A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart. But you may not notice it in the excitement and danger of the ride. There's the magnificent and ominous Congo River landscape, the present terror, the valor of the victimized native people, the greed of the exploiters of the river's resources (native and colonizers alike) and the intrepid European explorers who struggled to tame the river.
In Blood River, Tim Butcher attempts to recreated Henry Morton Stanley's journey of the 1870s. Sponsored by the New York Herald as an advertising stunt, Stanley is famous for having found the mythic Scottish explorer, David Livingstone, who went missing in Africa the late 1860s while looking for the origin of the Nile River. Stanley wanted to be the first to chart the Congo from its origin in the heart of Africa westward to the Atlantic and he ultimately--and at great cost--succeeded.
In 2004, Tim Butcher, likewise a professional journalist (Britain's Daily Telegraph), is determined to take that same journey. After extensive, obsessive research, he set out from the Congo's eastern border in a spirit of adventure and calculated misgivings, ignoring the fact that everyone he talked to told him he was crazy. He describes his travel by motorcycle, dug out canoe, steamboat, helicopter, plane and on foot with a precise, detail-rich journalist's eye.
Through his research, Tim Butcher was well aware of Africa's terrible legacy of slavery and exploitation of its riches, but he wasn't prepared for the day-to-day fear, the terrorist attacks forcing the Congolese to flee to the bush as a way of life, a jungle that ate up the railroad tracks, thriving riverfront cities of the '50s collapsed in corruption and decay, and a country--maybe the only country on the earth-- going backwards and retreating from progress into the primitive where there is "no memory for justice"--all punctuated with cell phones, abundant ammunition, jets and extravagantly wealthy internationals in gated communities rising out of the rain forest.
Along with Butcher, the reader tries to make sense of his life-threatening encounters where he is saved by local Congolese, foreign missionaries, and UN workers. We learn much about how the Congo played a dominant role in the slave trade on the west coast by the Portuguese and even earlier on the east coast by the Arab traders, how the colonizers tried and failed to harness the huge river full of cataracts, how Joseph Conrad and Barbara Kingsolver memorialized the river's heart of darkness, how Katherine Hepburn kept a journal during the filming of African Queen, and how the UN functioned in an ivory tower of antiseptic efficiency.
Tim Butcher writes about disease, murder, enslavement and the onslaught of the encroaching jungle. Ultimately his experience is "relentlessly punishing". Traveling on the Blood River, the reader too experiences the breakdown of civilization, with human suffering beyond what we can imagine living our First World lives. Truly, this is the "Last World".
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May 10, 2011 Julie Feher rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, 2011

Journalist, Tim Butcher, recreates Stanley's route down the Congo River by boat and by land. It was a fascinating journey and made me realize what an awful state this country is in. After "being discovered" and colonized by Belgium, they gained their independence and have since been raped and pillaged for their natural resources by foreign interests and greedy despots. Altogether a tragic account made worse by the fact that these atrocities are still going on today, while poor and malnourished v...more

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Nov 21, 2010 Jim rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I was surprised by the lack of blood in the book to be honest. Despite the author's continual expressions of fear and terror on his journey, he somehow fails to convey it other than by just saying so. The dreaded Mau Mau are glimpsed but not engaged with, and the massacres that often happened in the past aren't rendered in a way that makes much of an impact. I also became a bit tired with the subtext that seemed to say all the Congo's problems are rooted in the problems laid by the Belgian Empir...more

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Feb 01, 2010 Peter rated it 4 of 5 stars

ISBN 978-0-099-49428-7
The book is sub-titled A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart. It is the story of one man's obsession. Tim Butcher was obsessed with the Congo. I knew next to nothing about it, and bought the book because it looked like an interesting story. His obsession is not just with the Congo River, but also with the question "What is wrong with Africa?" The Congo has gone from a Belgium colony, made famous by the film "The African Queen", to probably the most failed state in the world to...more ISBN 978-0-099-49428-7
The book is sub-titled A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart. It is the story of one man's obsession. Tim Butcher was obsessed with the Congo. I knew next to nothing about it, and bought the book because it looked like an interesting story. His obsession is not just with the Congo River, but also with the question "What is wrong with Africa?" The Congo has gone from a Belgium colony, made famous by the film "The African Queen", to probably the most failed state in the world today. It is a huge country in the middle of Africa, and the river flows across it from east to west. Tim decides to re-create Stanley's (Sir Henry Morton) journey across Africa, down river from the source on lake Tanganyika to the Atlantic ocean. The current state of the Congo meant that the journey is even more dangerous than it was when Stanley tried, and (just) succeeded, and claimed the Country for the Belgian King. There are any number of groupings of 'rebels' - we'd call them terrorists anywhere else. The government is only in control of a small part of the country and to do anything there are government officials to get approval from, and to pay bribes to. Bribes are the only wages many of them get. The only real 'authority' lies with the U.N. peace keepers and aid workers - who seem to spend most of their time behind closed doors - or better concrete walls.
The book is split into chapters with sketch maps of the parts of the river that each chapter deals with. Tim sounds like a real expert on Congo history - he may possibly be the only non-resident in the world with such a knowledge. In each chapter we get not only the story of the people who he meets but also some of the history of the area. Almost all the histories involve massacres of some kind. It has to be said that they do rather merge into one as you read through the book. There are one or two that stand out as being unusually horrific even by Congo standards. There are time when he has weapons pointed at him, and when he is in fear for his life. The contrasts between these people, the aid workers, and some remaining missionaries, and a few locals is one of the great high lights of the book. There are many people struggling to make their own and other peoples lives work better in a situation that can rightly be described as hell on earth. Their stories are fascinating and leave you wondering why they bother and how they can stand the strain. Then there are those who are there for power and money. Some of those are even helpful to Tim.

Perhaps the most telling passage for me is a few paragraphs on a conversation with a peace keeper from Malaysia. His country was colonised and brutalised, but after independence it is now developing - "we even have a Grand Prix". While Africa, and in particular the Congo is going backwards. So you cannot put all the blame on the European colonists. No solution is offered, but paths are suggested in the last chapters. If you think you have a solution then after reading the book you may well change your mind.

It is not a page turner, not for me anyway. I had to stop a number of times - just to think a little about the horror and the squandering of human life.

Did he succeed in recreating Stanley's journey - you'll have to read it to find out ... (less)

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Jan 30, 2010 Curtis rated it 4 of 5 stars

The author, an English journalist, documents his 2005 descent of the Congo River through one of the world's most volatile countries. His journey begins with an obsession with Henry Morton Stanley's classic adventure on the river. After much networking and research, Butcher sets out to retrace Stanley's path from the upper Congo to the sea.

The beginning of the book is very good. Butcher weaves together history, commentary on the contemporary Congo, and his own adventure story very well. Butcher...more

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Jan 12, 2013 Ryan Murdock rated it 4 of 5 stars

In 2004 Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher retraced the route of Victorian-age explorer H.M. Stanley’s legendary expedition through the heart of the African Congo. He sought to understand why a land blessed with such natural resources could suffer such poverty. The Democratic Republic of Congo has more diamonds, gold, timber, agricultural land and navigable rivers than any other African nation, and yet it is now the most dangerous, chaotic, and backward country on the continent.

It was a...more

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Sep 16, 2012 Dan rated it 5 of 5 stars

I think my standards for a book with an African subject are high, and this did not disappoint. The bad parts are that the author can be a bit dramatic, and ultimately I don't have a ton of respect for people that take trips through war-ridden areas so that they can write a book about how they did it and survived. It seems a bit, there's an academic term for it, but I'm gonna go with dickish. People live there and survive there. The author does shed light on the inhabitants of Western DRC, but st...more

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Jan 30, 2012 Sam rated it 5 of 5 stars

About Congo / Zaire in 2004, an overland trip by bike and canoe ! with a good historical perspective since Stanley’s discovery.

The account & description is totally realistic and factual as perceived by me today,

When we traversed this huge country in 1972 by landrover it gave us the exact same impression, fears and trepidation, except that the decay was less extensive in 72. We were amazed and aghast at the cathedrals in “no where” and had put it down to megalomania, but now I understand it w...more

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Jan 22, 2013 Shelley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: africa, non-fiction, history

Another Western journalist's account of his travels through a war-torn African country, this time, the Congo. For anyone who read and enjoyed King Leopold's Ghost, this book can almost serve as a sort of sequel. In it, Tim Butcher attempts to retrace Henry Morton Stanley's portentous journey through the Congo over a century before. A friend of the author ironically points out, it's probably more dangerous to trek across the Congolese bush now than it was in Stanley's day.

So, I admit the book's...more

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Mar 31, 2010 Jenny rated it 4 of 5 stars

The author is a journalist who decides to follow/recreate Henry Morton Stanley's 19th century expedition across the Congo. The parallels between the two journeys are sad, frustrating, and almost unbelievable. I could write on and on about this topic as has been done (I recommend "The Last Expedition: Stanley's mad race across the Congo" or for fiction "The Poisonwood Bible")

It took me a little longer than usual to get through this book, probably because the situation in the Congo is heartbreakin...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars

All bar about 50 pages of this is set away from the Congo river, with the author negotiating the first leg of his journey overland and the penultimate one (highly reluctantly) by helicopter, but a cracking yarn it remains, as well as an incredible feat of endurance.

The history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo features almost as many bad guys as that of Milton Keynes Dons - from the leopard skin behatted Mobutu Sese Seko to the Hutu 'refugees' of neighbouring Rwanda, from the feckless Kabi...more

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Apr 24, 2012 Bholdsworth7 rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a great read - first, it is an exciting, story about the author recreating the journey of Stanley down the Congo River. The author relates his personal experience with the people and current conditions as he winds (stumbles?) his way across the country. The word undeveloped does not do the word justice as the country has taken leaps backward. It is unreal to hear the stories and descriptions of conditions that currently exist, while at the same time he is the beneficiary of the kindness...more

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Oct 24, 2012 Katie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have to admit that this book has been sitting on my shelf since I bought it when it first came out, each time I have perused the shelf to chose my next book, I have passed over it in the hope of finding a potentially more entertaining read. How wrong I was to leave the world uncovered in Blood River waiting patiently on my shelf!

Having recently become involved in a project in the DRC myself, I finally decided to give the book a go while I waited for my chosen background reading list to arrive...more I have to admit that this book has been sitting on my shelf since I bought it when it first came out, each time I have perused the shelf to chose my next book, I have passed over it in the hope of finding a potentially more entertaining read. How wrong I was to leave the world uncovered in Blood River waiting patiently on my shelf!

Having recently become involved in a project in the DRC myself, I finally decided to give the book a go while I waited for my chosen background reading list to arrive from Amazon. From the moment I started reading, it became clear that Blood River is no ordinary travel book. Having spent a short time in the DRC I came back with many questions too direct to ask the Congolese I met and yet too specific for any of my friends or colleagues to answer. Butcher’s book artfully addresses these questions, interweaving the answers with narrative of his arduous journey across the country in the style of "Ordeal travel" as he calls it.

Unlike the other Congo river trip book I had read just before (“Journey into the Heart of Darkness” by Jeffery Taylor), Blood River shares a lot more than just the trip itself and experiences of the author. The concept of the country moving backwards is constantly revisited and I shall always be moved by the idea that the DRC is one of the few places on earth where routinely a grandfather has more opportunities and access to modernity than his grandson.

Butcher carefully balances sympathy and frustration, noting that despite the huge suffering inflicted from the outside world, there is no excuse for the nation’s stagnancy - even backward slip - and almost total lack of rule of law. He paints a picture of both the futility of foreign aid and intervention, as well as the need for it as the only backbone supporting large swathes of society.

I was gripped by this book from the beginning, enjoying its colourful narrative while gaining a good basic grounding in Congolese history. My quest to learn more about the DRC and its history has been greatly advanced by this book.
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Jul 20, 2012 Timothy Riley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: travel

This book had some very important African history in it, a continent that people know very little about. It was a perfect compliment to The Great Game and I can't wait to reread The Heart of Darkness, which I think I read just after High School. With Butcher's real life modern account it would give some good context.

Nothing helped me grasp the state of the Congo better than on page 184 with the example of the station-master that has turned up for work for six years even though only one train ha...more This book had some very important African history in it, a continent that people know very little about. It was a perfect compliment to The Great Game and I can't wait to reread The Heart of Darkness, which I think I read just after High School. With Butcher's real life modern account it would give some good context.

Nothing helped me grasp the state of the Congo better than on page 184 with the example of the station-master that has turned up for work for six years even though only one train had come through during that time. Numerous other examples were explained to help readers get the feel for a country that had so much potential directly after independence-if it were able to deal with its brutal colonial past.

In short the Belgians and Leopold used the Congo as a giant, tropical bank account. Slave labor and violence were used to tap into a country with vast natural resources like rubber, timber, etc. Even though large scale infrastructure projects like dams, bridges, railway lines, extensive highways, and cotton mills had been constructed, post independence Congo was unable to capitalize on these investments. These investments should have been able to get Congolese resources to world markets and provided long term employment and foreign investment that would've modernized the heart of Africa.

There are too many reasons to count why this didn't happen, but Butcher explains some and alludes to others. One was the lack of training and leadership positions native Africans were given in the economy. They were never allowed to achieve above a certain level of seniority. Once the Belgians and other foreigners pulled out there was too big of a vacuum to fill. With the violence that occurred and the slaughter of Belgians and other Europeans how could anyone have enthusiastically jumped at investing in the country? There was little faith that due to brutality on the part of the colonizers and the ineptitude of the natives that any profit could safely be made unless the right connections with the government could be achieved. With Mobutu only caring about when his next German car would arrive, that wasn't going to happen.
There is also hope in that industrious people continue to exist outside of the militias and mercenaries such as the people pushing bicycles long distances loaded down with palm oil or other things to trade hundreds of miles away.

In terms of Stanley's journey, Butcher's trips shows how amazing Stanley's travels really were. In the modern era dodging men with AK-47's, land mines, disease and waiting weeks for transport Butcher's journey was mind boggling. But he had a map and was able to ride a motorcycle on a "road". Stanley, sweating, feverish, hacking his way through the jungle with such a large group, encountering rapids that no European had traversed, definitely goes down as one of the most legendary explorers ever-not to forget Livingstone himself who provided the reason for Stanley's first mission.

Obviously, nothing is holding the Congo back more than a lack of usable infrastructure and transportation, saying nothing of the murderous, blood-thirsty, drunken, bands of savages with assault rifles that aimlessly wander the bush searching for women to rape and men to rob and kill. Shipping building materials, trade, and short distance travel is all but impossible. The national government has no idea what is going on just upriver, let alone the East of the country. It becomes lawless and development just stops-hence why the Congo is one of several countries that has actually gone backwards in the last 50 years. Going backwards in terms of development is something that could actually be cheered on-for environmental reasons, but people live there and are unable to provide for themselves in that environment. Hence why Butcher didn't come across any wildlife or exotic species. They've all been killed and eaten in the land that has been mostly forgotten.

I have nothing to say about Mobutu besides that he was nothing more than a gangster who claimed to take pride in being "African" but acted the opposite. He needed to do more than wear a leopard skin hat to prove that he cared about the culture, history, struggles of his people. (less)

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Aug 08, 2011 Darius rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history-africa, travel-africa

In this excellent book, part travelogue and part history of the Congo, Tim Butcher traverses Africa's 'broken heart' from East to West, retracing the 1874 journey of Henry Morgan Stanley. Stanley, the journalist and explorer famous for finding the Scottish missionary, David Livingstone, was attempting to map the length of the Congo river from Lake Tanganyika all the way to the Atlantic coast.

Butcher's account of his six-week journey is not only extremely gripping, but also enlightening. Few Wes...more In this excellent book, part travelogue and part history of the Congo, Tim Butcher traverses Africa's 'broken heart' from East to West, retracing the 1874 journey of Henry Morgan Stanley. Stanley, the journalist and explorer famous for finding the Scottish missionary, David Livingstone, was attempting to map the length of the Congo river from Lake Tanganyika all the way to the Atlantic coast.

Butcher's account of his six-week journey is not only extremely gripping, but also enlightening. Few Westerners have crossed the Democratic Republic of Congo overland since the 1990s, during which time the country has been plagued by war and anarchy. Butcher meets the victims of this violence and sees at first hand the horror of today's DRC.

In the DRC, the normal course of economic development has been reversed. One must be careful not to romanticise things, but the Congo of the 1950s functioned much better than it does now. The capital, Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), was a significant airport hub; the port of Matadi served ocean liners; and an extensive network of railways and roads criss-crossed the country.

Today's DRC is a place where roads and rail tracks have been reclaimed by jungle; where grandparents are more familiar with technological wonders like cars and motorbikes than their grandchildren; and where people flee into the bush to escape violence and floods rather than to the urban areas which, in most of the rest of the world, provide safe havens.

This deeply unsettling book is a reminder that peace and prosperity are not the natural condition of man and that, in the absence of law and order, there is regression to a Hobbesian world of corruption and violence, where the only law is the law of the jungle.

What accounts for the current predicament of the DRC? Some argue that its colonial history is to blame. From 1885 until 1908, King Leopold II of Belgium ruled the Congo as his personal fiefdom, robbing it of its natural wealth such as rubber, ivory, golf and timber, and enslaving and killing millions of Congolese. This exploitation was described by Joseph Conrad as "the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience and geographical exploration".

This history of colonial exploitation has no doubt contributed to its parlous state now, but the Congo's problems can't be solely attributed to its colonial legacy, given that many former European colonies in Asia have since prospered. During a trip down the Congo on a UN riverboat, Butcher talks to the Malaysian Captain: "I don't know what it is about these Congolese people, or Africa in general, but look at this wasted opportunity," said Ali. "They don't want to make money for themselves. They just wait to take money from others."

Butcher offered Ali the usual explanations: "The Congolese had suffered under colonialism and, when independence came, the Congo was pulled apart by forces beyond its control, as the Cold War preoccupation of the West allowed Mobutu, under American patronage, to run the country into the ground."

"Rubbish," retorted Ali. "Malaysia was colonized for centuries too...We got independence at roughly the same time as the Congo in the early 1960s, and we were even drawn into a Cold War conflict for year after year as communist insurgents fought for control of Malaysia...Today Malaysia is part of the rest of the world. People go on holiday in Malaysia. The world's business community does business in Malaysia. We even have a Grand Prix every year in Malaysia. How can you explain the difference?"

Ali had "distilled the quintessential problem of Africa that generations of academics, intellectuals and observers have danced around since the colonial powers withdrew. Why are Africans so bad at running Africa?"

It's a good question, and one that ultimately Butcher remains unable to answer.

Overall, this is a brilliant book, spoiled only by the author's repeated efforts to ratchet up the tension by describing his fear of dangers which never materialize. Many of these dangers were real, of course, and his bravery was undeniable; but to overstate these dangers for dramatic purposes serves only to irritate.
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Sep 23, 2012 Alberta Ross rated it 4 of 5 stars

I grew up in an era when the Congo was referred to as the Belgian Congo. I came to political awareness about the time that this country descended into its own particular hell. I was interested, when we were given this book, a couple of years ago to read at our local reading group, to find out more about this country. Another reading group I belong to has had it again this month so I have read it a second time.

I read it both times with a grim satisfaction, enjoy is not the correct word for what i...more I grew up in an era when the Congo was referred to as the Belgian Congo. I came to political awareness about the time that this country descended into its own particular hell. I was interested, when we were given this book, a couple of years ago to read at our local reading group, to find out more about this country. Another reading group I belong to has had it again this month so I have read it a second time.

I read it both times with a grim satisfaction, enjoy is not the correct word for what is at times an unbearably grim rendering of the country's history, I would though recommend it to anyone interested in the many different worlds that make up the global whole.

For a moment, just before this last grim episode, which started 50 years ago now I suppose, the Congo was kind of working. Tourists went there, businesses went there, there was a lot of corruption, apartheid and inequality it is true, but there was roads, railways, working infrastructures, education and worship. It was a country I had always wished to visit one day, but of course I never have. I knew people who had connections with the country, either through religion or trade but it had totally descended to being too dangerous by the time I was free to travel.

Butcher who seems to suffer from a mindset of sheer insanity, decided, on what appears to be a very fragile reason, to retrace Stanley’s footsteps. Stanley of Livingstone’s frame. Against all advice, and all common sense, he sets off to cross a country where a white man is definitely suspicious and stands out like the sorest of thumb. Across a country which is almost broken; no infrastructure, no working towns or villages, inhabited by petrified victims. Bandits, armies and insurgents prowl the land; inflicting unspeakable atrocities on those they happen to take a dislike against, or sometimes for no reason at all. To travel across a country where civil order has broken down, where there is an overall deprivation of the basic necessities of life seems, to me, to be insanity too far.

Maybe it's the very insanity that made it successful! Along the way Butcher meets the ordinary and the extraordinary inhabitants of this poor country, those whose humanity still shines, as well as those who corruption has changed forever. Where he can he talks to them, his reporter’s instinct never failing him. Throughout the book, he narrates Congo's history for us. These historical strands illuminate the endless repetitions of exploitation, violence, and political shenanigans which have plagued this most beautiful of countries. And, at times, these strands make you bow your head in despair and make you wonder how it is possible that the Congo will ever recover? But, we know with the right luck, and common good, countries can recover even from histories like this and you're left at the end of the book hoping that this will be so for the Congo.

As I said it cannot be called an enjoyable book, but it is a fascinating and oddly satisfying book. I could read it again, there is so much information. And I'd highly recommend it to anyone interested in this part of the world. However, it is not a book for the faint hearted, there are many very distressing scenes within the pages, but life is full of the horrific and distressing and we do the people of the Congo a disservice if we are not prepared to face their reality, if we do not again repeat the old phrase ‘There but for the grace. . .’ If we do not remember the how fragile our security is, how swiftly civilization can unravel.

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Apr 15, 2010 itpdx rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

This book is a revelation! Butcher gives us a moving picture of the DRC Congo as he follows Stanley's path down the Congo River. He describes what he sees and feels-fear, dehydration, illness, heat, irritation as he travels by motorbike, pirogue, pusher boat across Congo. He gives us the history of the area from European contact through the latest killings. His interviews of the people--a militia leader, missionaries, village heads, mining officials, aid workers (both Congolese and foreigners fr...more

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About Tim Butcher

Tim Butcher is a best-selling British author, journalist and broadcaster. Born in 1967, he was on the staff of The Daily Telegraph from 1990 to 2009, covering all major conflicts across the Balkans the Middle East and Africa. Recognised in 2010 with an honorary doctorate for services to journalism and writing, he is based with his family in the South African city of Cape Town.

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Books by Tim Butcher

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“….So much crueller than any British colony, they say, so much more brutal towards the local Africans, so much more manipulative after begrudgingly granting independence. But the history of British colonialism in Africa, from Sierra Leone to Zimbabwe, Kenya to Botswana and else-where, is not fundamentally different from what Belgium did in the Congo. You can argue about degree, but both systems were predicated on the same assumption: that white outsiders knew best and Africans were to be treated not as partners, but as underlings. What the British did in Kenya to suppress the pro-independence mau-mau uprising in the 1950s, using murder, torture and mass imprisonment, was no more excusable than the mass arrests and political assassinations committed by Belgium when it was trying to cling on to the Congo. And the outside world's tolerance of a dictator in the Congo like Mobutu, whose corruption and venality were overlooked for strategic expedience, was no different from what happened in Zimbabwe, where the dictator Robert Mugabe was allowed to run his country and its people into the ground because Western powers gullibly accepted the way he presented himself as the only leader able to guarantee stability and an end to civil strife. Those sniffy British colonial types might not like to admit it, but the Congo represents the quintessence of the entire continent’s colonial experience. It might be extreme and it might be shocking, but what happened in the Congo is nothing but colonialism in its purest, basest form.” — 7 people liked it

“The old man might have been drunk, but he was right. Outsiders have robbed and exploited the people of the Congo ever since the days of the first European and Arab slavers. The territory that Stanley staked in the name of Leopold witnessed what many regard as the first genocide of the modern era, when millions of Congolese were effectively worked to death trying to meet the colonialists’ almost insatiable demand for resources, most notably rubber. And since independence, foreign powers have toyed with the Congo, stripping its mineral assets and exploiting its strategic position, never mindful of the suffering inﬂicted on its people. And that really was the point. At every stage of its bloody history, outsiders have tended to treat Congolese as somehow sub-human, not worthy of the consideration they would expect for themselves. For progress to be made, outsiders must treat Congolese as equals and they could do worse than follow the example of an amazing white woman I discovered after we got back to Kalemie.” — 3 people liked it

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