A review by bobbo49
Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart by Tim Butcher

4.0

Butcher, a journalist with international credentials, decided to retrace Stanley's route down the Congo River in the mid-2000s. This memoir of the journey is filled with the details of that death-defying journey, but more importantly provides a vivid insight into post-colonial central Africa, reflecting the descent into chaos that has marked so much of the past 50 years. The decaying remnants of European exploitation have been replaced by virtually complete lawlessness throughout the country, while the few economic and political elites continued to pillage the nation's natural resources in much the same manner as the white colonizers. A remarkable voyage for Butcher is a sad reflection of the state of much of central Africa today.