The Nile. History’s Greatest River

Description

Cover page Halftitle page Title page Copyright page Epigraph Contents Plates Maps 1 The Beginning of the Journey The mosaic outside Rome The stream of history 2 The Desert and the Delta The desert paradise Scarabs, rebirth and the river of death and life Society and the river’s rhythm Cities and rivers that vanished The Nile city of Alexander the Great Philosophy’s beginnings Caesar and Cleopatra on the Nile Jesus and Mary’s escape up the Nile Delta The Bible: God punishes those who claim they possess the river Islam conquers the Nile Delta The Caliph’s letter to the Nile Napoleon on the march Critique of Orientalism The Battle of the Nile: Paris versus London The battle over the Rosetta Stone: thieves versus thieves The Albanian soldier who became the Nile’s reformer The giraffe that sailed downriver and travelled to Paris The long-distance runner who perished on his way to the source of the Nile The canal between the oceans Gustave Flaubert and Henrik Ibsen: ‘From Cairo up the Nile’ Shares and occupation Where the Egyptians made the Nile a weapon of war At the crossroads of history, river and sea 3 Towards Karnak and the Nile Cataracts The city the Arabs founded and the British took A Nilometer with nothing to measure Conservative colonialists as a revolution’s vanguard The river as carrot and stick The Muslim Brotherhood will ‘secure the Nile’s sources’ A role awaiting a hero The Suez Crisis and the dam The Soviet Union as the modernizer of the Nile ‘The Lady of the Nile’ Adrift on the Nile and a Nobel Prize winner An artificial waterfall in the desert Thebes and Karnak in danger The Valley of the Kings and ideals of beauty Where travel literature arose Ancient Aswan as a symbol of modernity The downstream complex Monumental monuments now and in ancient times Egyptian gods and eternal life ‘Revolt on the Nile’ and water insecurity 4 Nubia and the Country Where the Rivers Meet Eighty kilometres of artificial desert lake Nubia: gold and cataracts Muhammad Ali’s river war The politics of geography Explorers who vanished Wanderings and castles in the sand Where the great rivers meet The ‘light-bearer’ in Khartoum The dance in the sand Time and the river folk’s daughter Queen Victoria’s river war The British massacre on the banks of the Nile The unknown engineer and a historical report The Blue Nile and the explorer from Norway Sudan’s possibilities and the birth of a hydraulic state A white-spotted gecko and the Prophet Winston Churchill: ‘Munich is situated on the Nile’ Sudan and Egypt share the Nile Dump the whisky in the river! An Islamic coup Osama bin Laden as Nile contractor A new city in the middle of the world’s longest kiss Sudan rattles its Nile weapon ‘A project of the century’ (and let them eat that arrest order) Nubia and Nile control The lion’s share The Middle East’s granary and a sugar company 5 The Nile Wetlands and the New State The land of distances A dictatorial river The Nilotic water world and a river chieftain A thread that winds everywhere Arabic invaders from the north European adventurers in the swamps Europe on the brink of a water war in South Sudan A sacred pool On travelling the swamp and theories of Africa’s development Jonglei: a new aqueduct to the north Razzias and peace ‘A human zoo for anthropologists to study’ World-class colonial research in the swamps A ‘Nile Republic’? Stop the canal! In the shadows of the rainforest The new Nile state and George W. Bush Another Nile granary? State formation and hydrodiplomacy 6 The Country with the Great Lakes The race to the source The adventurer and his slave wife ‘Discoverers’ or discoverers? Naked resolution and scientific evangelism The African kingdom at the Nile’s source The missionaries arrive Decisive for Egypt’s future London seizes control of the Nile lakes Where the animals rule (by the grace of humankind) Waterfalls and images of ‘the other’ and ‘us’ ‘Baker of the Nile’ Winston Churchill in the jungle Bogart, Hepburn and Hemingway at the Nile Falls A Nile empire full of inner contradictions Owen Falls: ‘Uganda’s beginning’ A British prime minister as ‘water warrior’ Idi Amin claps for well-fed crocodiles on the Nile The woman and the water meant to bulletproof warriors Stories about the sacred water The Wizard of the Nile and the Lord’s Resistance Army New discoveries: oil in the Nile! Central Africa’s inland lake Darwin’s Pond, evolution’s teaching and mass extinction The Speke Resort, Museveni and the Nile The Industrial Revolution comes to Uganda The world’s largest insect swarms and Nile time 7 East of the Inland Ocean The train through the country at the source of the White Nile Sleeping sickness and colonialism The railway that created a country The Asian and the Jewish questions The white tribe on the high plains A Nile state with no nation Olympic masters from the ‘stony river’ Masai Mara The Luo and Barack Obama’s journey Kenya and the Nile question Humanity’s cradle Bismarck and the rock at the water’s edge An unknown European naval battle on a Nile lake Colonial agreements and the Nile’s present A country with gift economy The wildebeest crossing What is the Nile? Pumping the lake and defying Egypt 8 Towards the Nile’s Sources in Central Africa Where the river splits and collects Plastic bags and fire extinguishers Hotel Rwanda and the river road Letter from Ground Zero What is ethnicity? A metamorphosis An American pastor at the source of the Nile A new era as the border shifts Gorillas in the mist The Nile source in the rainforest Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad and a Nile biography A snow-covered Moon Mountain on the Equator King Leopold, a robber state and Nile diplomacy The Congo Nile Lake Albert or Lake Mobutu A shifting border ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume’ Kingdom and colony Self-reflection and masks Rivalry on all fronts The guerrilla leader redeemed by a Norwegian preacher Courtship, carpets and water The pyramid at the source 9 The Water Tower in the East A train trip and an art deco capital on the Horn of Africa Italy as a Nile power Eritrea in exchange for a Nile dam The river as metaphor and boundary An outcast among nations Troublemaker or peace ambassador? A surprise visit to Asmara To the Nile’s water tower Aksum and the highlands The moment’s limitations Monastery island, the sea and the world’s end An Ethiopian philosopher and cave dweller Mass baptism in Bahir Dar The sacred Nile and the Scot who posed as discoverer of the source Prester John and the Virgin Mary govern the Nile Occupation or agreement Rome and London’s secret plot Mussolini at the lake A dam and the prelude to the Second World War The Cold War and hydropolitics The water tower to realize its potential Deep ecology, reflection and the river’s sign Bob Geldof ’s Ethiopia: a land without rivers The Renaissance Dam Donald Trump, the US and the Nile negotiations 10 The End of the Journey The river of history and its future The sculpture in Rome Notes References Index of Names Plates