Word: sahara
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Computer of the Sahara: The story of France's Romantic, Bold, Frequently Foolhardy Attempt in the Late Nineteenth Century to Explore and Dominate the World's Greatest Desert...
...Douglas Porch's The Conquest of the Sahara, it's not so easy. While the story is told from the perspective of the colonial-French, their swath of death and mutilation across "the world's greatest desert" hardly makes them lovable. On the other hand, their opponents, the Tuareg desert tribesmen and their sometime allies the Chaamba Arabs, are at least as treacherous as the French. No one likes a story without sympathetic characters, and the only ones in Conquest of the Sahara are the nameless Arab and Black peasants and slaves who are robbed, raped, and murdered by both...
...government was wrapped between its dreams of seeing the tricouleur across half of Africa and the stark realization that the Sahara was a wasteland universally considered worthless. As a result, it allocated men and money only in drips and sports. Its hesitation meant the conquests of the Sahara was not one great adventure, but a series of expeditions of varying brutality and success that established a string of forts through the middle of the desert...
LIKE THE ACTUAL conquest of the Sahara, The Conquest of the Sahara is a series of anecdotes tied around the theme of France and the desert. After reading about three or four expeditions, though, it gradually appears that they are all the same one. To wit: incompetent French officer A is appointed via government connections to lead expedition across the Sahara to Point B. He is given C Francs and D assistants, collects E colonial troops in French Algeria, and, most importantly, F camels. Along the journey treacherous native guides mislead the party, and contacts with the mysterious Tuareg people...
Often Sartre gets down to the brass tacks of pondering existence: "This evening I miss Argentine, the Sahara, all the parts of the world I don't know, the whole earth--and that's much milder, more resigned and hopeless. It's a 'tender suffering' that resembles happiness. It's like missing a life I might have had when I was 'a thousand Socrates'. But now I'm only one. Or maybe two or three...