Paperback
-
SHIP THIS ITEMAvailable for Pre-Order. This item will be released on May 15, 2025PICK UP IN STORE
Store Pickup available after publication date.
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
“Has much to offer.” The Spectator
"Sparks the imagination." BBC History Magazine
"A fascinating study." BBC History Revealed Magazine
“Essential reading." All About History
"Valiant, valuable and entertaining." Times Literary Supplement
The greatest river in the world has a long and fascinating history. Professor Terje Tvedt, one of the world's leading experts on the history of waterways, travels upstream along the river's mouth to its sources. The result is a travelogue through 5000 years and 11 countries, from the Mediterranean to Central Africa. This is the fascinating story of the immense economic, political and mythical significance of the river. Brimming with accounts of central characters in the struggle for the Nile – from Caesar and Cleopatra, to Churchill and Mussolini, and on to the political leaders of today, The Nile is also the story of water as it nourished a civilization.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781350522237 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Publication date: | 05/15/2025 |
| Pages: | 400 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
List of plates xi
Maps xiii
The Beginning of the Journey
The mosaic outside Rome 1
The stream of history 4
The Desert and the Delta
The desert paradise 7
Scarabs, rebirth and the river of death and life 9
Society and the river's rhythm 11
Cities and rivers that vanished 13
The Nile city of Alexander the Great 15
Philosophy's beginnings 16
Caesar and Cleopatra on the Nile 18
Jesus and Mary's escape up the Nile Delta 20
The Bible: God punishes those who claim they possess the river 22
Islam conquers the Nile Delta 24
The Caliph's letter to the Nile 25
Napoleon on the march 26
Critique of Orientalism 31
The Battle of the Nile: Paris versus London 33
The battle over the Rosetta Stone: thieves versus thieves 34
The Albanian soldier who became the Nile's reformer 36
The giraffe that sailed downriver and travelled to Paris 39
The long-distance runner who perished on his way to the source of the Nile 40
The canal between the oceans 41
Gustave Flaubert and Henrik Ibsen: 'From Cairo up the Nile' 44
Share's and occupation 49
Where the Egyptians made the Nile a weapon of war 50
At the crossroads of history, river and sea 52
Towards Karnak and the Nile Cataracts
The city the Arabs founded and the British took 55
A Nilometer with nothing to measure 58
Conservative colonialists as a revolution's vanguard 59
The river as carrot and stick 63
The Muslim Brotherhood will 'secure the Nile's sources' 64
A role awaiting a hero 65
The Suez Crisis and the dam 67
The Soviet Union as the modernizer of the Nile 70
'The Lady of the Nile' 71
Adrift on the Nile and a Nobel Prize winner 72
An artificial waterfall in the desert 73
Thebes and Karnak in danger 75
The valley of the Kings and ideals of beauty 76
Where travel literature arose 77
Ancient Aswan as a symbol of modernity 79
The downstream complex 81
Monumental monuments now and in ancient times 84
Egyptian gods and eternal life 85
'Revolt on the Nile' and water insecurity 88
Nubia and the Country Where the Rivers Meet
Eighty kilometres of artificial desert lake 91
Nubia: gold and cataracts 92
Muhammad Ali's river war 95
The politics of geography 97
Explorers who vanished 98
Wanderings and castles in the sand 99
Where the great rivers meet 100
The 'light-bearer' in Khartoum 102
The dance in the sand 105
Time and the river folk's daughter 107
Queen Victoria's river war 108
The British massacre on the banks of the Nile 111
The unknown engineer and a historical report 113
The Blue Nile and the explorer from Norway 115
Sudan's possibilities and the birth of a hydraulic state 117
A white-spotted gecko and the Prophet 119
Winston Churchill: 'Munich is situated on the Nile' 120
Sudan and Egypt share the Nile 122
Dump the whisky in the river! 123
An Islamic coup 125
Osama bin Laden as Nile contractor 126
A new city in the middle of the world's longest kiss 128
Sudan rattles its Nile weapon 129
'A project of the century' (and let them eat that arrest order) 131
Nubia and Nile control 132
The lion's share 134
The Middle East's granary and a sugar company 134
The Nile Wetlands and the New State
The land of distances 137
A dictatorial river 139
The Nilotic water world and a river chieftain 141
A thread that winds everywhere 142
Arabic invaders from the north 144
European adventurers in the swamps 146
Europe on the brink of a water war in South Sudan 147
A sacred pool 150
On travelling the swamp and theories of Africa's development 151
Jonglei: a new aqueduct to the north 154
Razzias and peace 155
'A human zoo for anthropologists to study' 157
World-class colonial research in the swamps 159
A 'Nile Republic'? 160
Stop the canal! 161
In the shadows of the rainforest 163
The new Nile state and George W. Bush 164
Another Nile granary? 167
State formation and hydrodiplomacy 169
The Country with the Great Lakes
The race to the source 173
The adventurer and his slave wife 175
'Discoverers' or discoverers? 176
Naked resolution and scientific evangelism 178
The African kingdom at the Nile's source 181
The missionaries arrive 182
Decisive for Egypt's future 185
London seizes control of the Nile lakes 187
Where the animals rule (by the grace of humankind) 189
Waterfalls and images of 'the other' and 'us' 190
'Baker of the Nile' 191
Winston Churchill in the jungle 192
Bogart, Hepburn and Hemingway at the Nile Fails 194
A Nile empire full of inner contradictions 196
Owen Falls: 'Uganda's beginning' 199
A British prime minister as 'water warrior' 201
Idi Amin claps for well-fed crocodiles on the Nile 203
The woman and the water meant to bulletproof warriors 205
Stories about the sacred water 207
The Wizard of the Nile and the Lord's Resistance Army 208
New discoveries: oil in the Nile! 211
Central Africa's inland lake 213
Darwin's Pond, evolution's teaching and mass extinction 215
The Speke Resort, Museveni and the Nile 217
The Industrial Revolution comes to Uganda 219
The world's largest insect swarms and Nile time 220
East of the Inland Ocean
The train through the country at the source of the White Nile 225
Sleeping sickness and colonialism 226
The railway that created a country 227
The Asian and the Jewish questions 229
The white tribe on the high plains 231
A Nile state with no nation 233
Olympic masters from the 'stony river' 236
Masai Mara 238
The Luo and Barack Obama's journey 240
Kenya and the Nile question 243
Humanity's cradle 245
Bismarck and the rock at the water's edge 246
An unknown European naval battle on a Nile lake 249
Colonial agreements and the Nile's present 251
A country with gift economy 253
The wildebeest crossing 255
What is the Nile? 256
Pumping the lake and defying Egypt 257
Towards the Nile's Sources in Central Africa
Where the river splits and collects 261
Plastic bags and fire extinguishers 262
Hotel Rwanda and the river road 263
Letter from Ground Zero 264
What is ethnicity? 265
A metamorphosis 269
An American pastor at the source of the Nile 272
A new era as the border shifts 274
Gorillas in the mist 275
The Nile source in the rainforest 276
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad and a Nile biography 278
A snow-covered Moon Mountain on the Equator 282
King Leopold, a robber state and Nile diplomacy 283
The Congo Nile 286
Lake Albert or Lake Mobutu 288
A shifting border 290
'Dr Livingstone, I presume' 291
Kingdom and colony 292
Self-reflection and masks 294
Rivalry on all fronts 295
The guerrilla leader redeemed by a Norwegian preacher 296
Courtship, carpets and water 298
The pyramid at the source 300
The Water Tower in the East
A train trip and an art deco capital on the Horn of Africa 303
Italy as a Nile power 305
Eritrea in exchange for a Nile dam 307
The river as metaphor and boundary 309
An outcast among nations 311
Troublemaker or peace ambassador? 313
A surprise visit to Asmara 314
To the Nile's water tower 315
Aksum and the highlands 317
The moment's limitations 318
Monastery island, the sea and the world's end 319
An Ethiopian philosopher and cave dweller 321
Mass baptism in Bahir Dar 322
The sacred Nile and the Scot who posed as discoverer of the source 323
Prester John and the Virgin Mary govern the Nile 325
Occupation or agreement 326
Rome and London's secret plot 329
Mussolini at the lake 331
A dam and the prelude to the Second World War 332
The Cold War and hydropolitics 334
The water tower to realize its potential 336
Deep ecology, reflection and the river's sign 337
Bob Geldof's Ethiopia: a land without rivers 339
The Renaissance Dam 341
Donald Trump, the US and the Nile negotiations 343
The End of the Journey
The river of history and its future 347
The sculpture in Rome 350
Notes 353
References 365
Index of Names 375