Majestic River

Majestic River: Mungo Park and the Exploration of the Niger is about geography, exploration, and a 2000-year-old geographical mystery. By the eighteenth century, the river Niger was, to Europeans, a source of wonder, potential wealth, and a two-part problem. The first part of this mystery was solved by Mungo Park in 1796. Park's death in 1806, while attempting to solve the second part, prompted other expeditions which sought to determine the cause of his death and trace the Niger's course.

This book offers the first full-length biography of Mungo Park in over forty years. It traces the expeditions that followed him and documents, for the first time, Park's afterlife—how and why he was commemorated long after his death. The book shows how the Niger was slowly 'revealed' through texts, maps, and indigenous knowledge. The Niger problem was finally solved through exploration in 1830. However, years before this, it had been solved by 'armchair geographers' who never set foot in Africa and who, unlike Park, did not die trying.

Park remains today one of Britain's best-known explorers, and his classic work, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, became a bestseller and has remained in print for over 200 years. The mystery of Park's death and the ongoing fascination with the Niger problem prompted expedition after expedition well into the 19th century. This is not simply one of the great stories of world exploration but a rich and varied account of Africa and its cultures at the time.