[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-45988-en":3,"doc-seo-45988-105":28,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":90},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":11,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":11,"is_downloadable":11,"audit_status":11,"page_count":20,"language":21,"language_code":22,"site_id":23,"html_lang":22,"table_of_contents":24,"faqs":25,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":26,"read_time":27},45988,13056703019404,"Miles","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_29158cc5080c5b710cf443261637dec0",1,"Story & Novel","Congo","Congo recounts the last American expedition to the Congo in June 1979, spanning thirteen days in the northeastern Congo Basin where rain forest meets Virunga volcanoes at the Great Rift Valley. The narrative contrasts the 1979 team’s secrecy, speed, and smaller modern party with Henry Morton Stanley’s 19th-century journeys, motivations, and commercial aims. Both expeditions share harsh losses and sensational discoveries, while underscoring how African exploration shifts yet remains fundamentally shaped by access, logistics, and power.","CONGO  \nby  \nMICHAEL CRICHTON  \nFor Bob Gottlieb  \nIntroduction  \nOnly prejudice, and a trick of the Mercator projection, prevents us from recognizing the enormity of the African continent. Covering nearly twelve million square miles, Africa is almost as large as North America and Europe combined. It is nearly twice the size of South America . As we mistake its dimensions, we also mistake its essential nature: the Dark Continent is mostly hot desert and open grassy plains.  \nIn fact, Africa is called the Dark Continent for one reason only: the vast equatorial rain forests of its central region. This is the drainage basin of the Congo River, and one-tenth of the continent is given over to it—a million and a half square miles of silent, damp, dark forest, a single uniform geographical feature nearly half the size of the continental United States . This primeval forest has stood, unchanged and unchallenged, for more than sixty million years .  \nEven today, only half a million people inhabit the Congo Basin, and they are mostly clustered in villages along the banks of the slow muddy rivers that flow through the jungle. The great expanse of the forest remains inviolate, and to this day thousands of square miles are still unexplored .  \nThis is true particularly of the northeastern corner of the Congo Basin, where the rain forest meets the Virunga volcanoes, at the edge of the Great Rift Valley . Lacking established trade routes or compelling features of interest, Virunga was never seen by Western eyes until less than a hundred years ago .  \nThe race to make “the most important discovery of the 1980s” in the Congo took place during six weeks of 1979. This book recounts the thirteen days of the last American expedition to the Congo, in June, 1979—barely a hundred years after Henry Morton Stanley first explored the Congo in 1874—77 . A comparison of the two expeditions reveals much about the changing—and unchanging—nature of African exploration in the intervening century .  \nStanley is usually remembered as the newsman who found Livingstone in 1871, but his real importance lay in later exploits. Moorehead calls him “a new kind of man in Africa . . . a businessman-explorer . . . . Stanley was not in Africa to reform the people nor to build an empire, and he was not impelled by any real interest in such matters as anthropology, botany or geology . To put it bluntly, he was out to make a name for himself.”  \nWhen Stanley set out again from Zanzibar in 1874, he was again handsomely financed by newspapers . And when he emerged from the jungle at the  \nAtlantic Ocean 999 days later, having suffered incredible hardships and the loss of more than two-thirds of his original party, both he and his newspapers had one of the great stories of the century: Stanley had traveled the entire length of the Congo River .  \nBut two years later, Stanley was back in Africa under very different circumstances. He traveled under an assumed name; he made diversionary excursions to throw spies off his trail; the few people who knew he was in  \nAfrica could only guess that he had in mind “some grand commercial scheme .”  \nIn fact, Stanley was financed by Leopold II of Belgium, who intended to acquire personally a large piece of Africa . “It is not a question of Belgian colonies,” Leopold wrote Stanley . “It is a question of creating anew State, as big as possible. . . . The King, as a private person, wishes to possess properties in Africa . Belgium wants neither a colony nor territories. Mr . Stanley must therefore buy lands or get them conceded to him  \nThis incredible plan was carried out . By 1885, one American said that Leopold “possesses the Congo just as Rockefeller possesses Standard Oil .”The comparison was apt in more ways than one, for African exploration had become dominated by business.  \nIt has remained so to this day . Stanley would have approved the 1979 American expedition, which was conducted in secrecy, with an emphasis on speed . But the differ","cbCaicalmx7pk9Ba","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaicalmx7pk9Ba","pdf",494744,202,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n## The Congo Basin and Virunga Region\n## The 1979 American Expedition\n## Stanley’s Journeys and Motivations\n## Comparing Two Eras of Exploration\n## Acknowledgments","[{\"question\":\"What geographic focus does the book introduce in the Congo Basin?\",\"answer\":\"It centers on the equatorial rain forests of the Congo River drainage basin, especially the northeastern corner where the forest meets the Virunga volcanoes at the Great Rift Valley edge.\"},{\"question\":\"What timeframe does the book cover for the last American expedition?\",\"answer\":\"The account covers thirteen days of the last American expedition in June 1979, during a six-week push in 1979.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the book compare the 1979 expedition with Henry Morton Stanley’s earlier expeditions?\",\"answer\":\"It contrasts the modern team’s secrecy and rapid deployment with Stanley’s slower trek and larger force, while noting similarities such as losing about two-thirds of the party and returning with dramatic 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geographic focus does the book introduce in the Congo Basin?","Question",{"text":74,"@type":75},"It centers on the equatorial rain forests of the Congo River drainage basin, especially the northeastern corner where the forest meets the Virunga volcanoes at the Great Rift Valley edge.","Answer",{"name":77,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":78},"What timeframe does the book cover for the last American expedition?",{"text":79,"@type":75},"The account covers thirteen days of the last American expedition in June 1979, during a six-week push in 1979.",{"name":81,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":82},"How does the book compare the 1979 expedition with Henry Morton Stanley’s earlier expeditions?",{"text":83,"@type":75},"It contrasts the modern team’s secrecy and rapid deployment with Stanley’s slower trek and larger force, while noting similarities such as losing about two-thirds of the party and returning with dramatic 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