Quest For The Jade Sea: Colonial Competition Around An East African Lake [Hardcover]

Pascal James Imperato (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0813327911 | ISBN-13: 978-0813327914 | Publication Date: April 30, 1998

The last of the major African lakes to be visited by European travelers in the late nineteenth century, Lake Rudolf lies in the eastern arm of the great Rift Valley in present-day northern Kenya, near the Ethiopian border. Also known as Lake Turkana, Lake Rudolf is a large saltwater body two hundred miles long and forty miles wide. Fed by the Omo River that flows south from the Ethiopian highlands, it is surrounded by an inhospitable landscape of extinct volcanoes, wind-driven semidesert, and old lava flows. Because of the greenish hue of its waters, it has long been called the Jade Sea.Quest for the Jade Sea examines the fascinating story of colonial competition around this remote lake. Pascal James Imperato’s account yields important insights into European colonial policies in East Africa in the late nineteenth century and how these policies came into conflict with a powerful indigenous and independent African state, Ethiopia, which itself was engaged in imperial expansion.Although the chief competitors for the lake included the British, Italians, the French, Russians, and Ethiopians, its colonial fate was decided by Great Britain and Ethiopia. The role of Ethiopia as a late nineteenth-century colonial power unfolds as Imperato provides unique insights and analyses of Ethiopian colonial policy and its effects on the peoples who inhabited the region of the lake.As well as examining the political and diplomatic aspects of colonial competition for Lake Rudolf, Quest for the Jade Sea focuses on the expeditions that traveled there. Many of these were the field expressions of colonial policy; others were undertaken in the interest of scientific and geographical discovery. Whatever the impetus, their success required courage and much suffering on the part of those who led them. Whether as willing agents of larger colonial designs, soldiers intent on promoting their military careers, or explorers who wished to advance scientific knowledge, expedition leaders left behind not only fascinating chronicles of their experiences and discoveries but also parts of the larger story of colonial competition around an East African lake.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Lake Turkana (or Rudolph), a body of water some 200 miles long and 14 miles across in northern Kenya, has held a special appeal for a small group of foreigners willing and able to visit the area. Imperato, a professor in preventive medicine at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Brooklyn, is one of them. He has faithfully documented the exploration of the lake during the second half of the 19th century and narrates how the lake-isolated in a desert and jade in color in the afternoon light-became a center of imperial competition. The book adds to our understanding of the conflict between competing empires-Ethiopian, British, German, and French-as each sought to control this region of eastern Africa. The book will appeal primarily to specialists in African or imperial studies. Recommended for academic libraries.ABill Rau, Takoma Park, MD
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Pascal James Imperato is Distinguished Service Professor and Chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 360 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (April 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813327911
• ISBN-13: 978-0813327914
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,101,596 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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