Dr. David Livingstone: Missionary Explorer to Africa

Most of us think of David Livingstone as a 19th-century British explorer of Africa, a man who dropped out of contact with the West for a few years and was famously found by American adventurer Henry Morton Stanley (“Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”). But there was a great deal more to Livingstone's life and accomplishments, as viewers will discover in this fine documentary that combines archival materials and interviews with several historians. The story begins with Livingstone's early life as a schoolboy who extended his education through books, despite having to work long hours in a Scottish mill. Becoming both a doctor and a missionary, Livingstone traveled to the least-known, widely inhabited place in the world, Africa, where he survived a devastating attack by a lion, malaria, and the death of his wife and child, among many other hardships while working to discover trade routes, as well as documenting the continent's etymology, drawing maps, practicing medicine, teaching Christianity, and bringing attention to the barbarous slave trade (his eyewitness accounts were a major contribution to England's ultimate rejection of slavery). Livingstone's books would alter the common perception of Africa as the “Dark Continent,” while his obsessive quest at the end of his life to find the source of the Nile River would add to his legend. Highly recommended. Aud: P. (T. Keogh)