Reviews (3)

Thorough, but very negative writer
I enjoyed this book but was extremely disappointed by the pessimism displayed by the writer.While he was extremely thorough in his examination of the many great places and activities in Zambia, his writing failed to get me excited about my trip.In fact, it made me dread going.Fortunately, once I got here, I realized that Zambia is a WONDERFUL country and the negatives are few and far
Valuable resouce guide
I found this guide book extremely helpful and informative.I would highly recommend it to anyone planning a trip (especially for the first time) to Zambia.It was very thorough and comprehensive.It answered my many questions--almost before I had them, and made me feel much more confident about traveling to a new country.The author is knowledgable and well-versed.The information and tips included are pertinent and timely.Don't leave for Zambia without it!

The best option available
I spent six weeks in Zambia in fall 2003. In preparing for the trip, I checked out all the available guidebooks and found two that were worth carrying along: the Lonely Planet guide and the Bradt guide. In all, Bradt was the best. It covered more territory, was stronger on areas of the country outside the major cities (Lusaka, Livingstone, etc.), had better coverage of safaris, and just generally seemed to be written by someone who knew the country -- not someone who had zipped in and out for guidebook purposes. There was almost never anything in the LP that wasn't in the Bradt; there were often things that were in the Bradt that weren't in the LP. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Travel & holiday guides    5. Travel / Africa    6. Zambia   

Reviews (1)

Essential, but don't pay too much
As any world traveler will tell you, Lonely Planet Guides are the best.Don't pay too much for this book though.You can buy it new on the Lonely Planet website for $17.99.Some private sellers (not Amazon) are selling it for way too much! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Travel & holiday guides    5. Zambia   

Reviews (9)

Naipaul's glance at post-Colonial Africa
Shiva Naipaul's _North of South: An African Journey_ is the most cynical book I've ever read.It is a travelogue of the author's visit to three postcolonial African countries in the 1970s: Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia.Naipaul is a Hindu, born in Trinidad, and he pays attention to the role (and plight) of South Asians (Hindus, Pakistanis, Sikhs, Parsees, etc) in East Africa.He also focuses on the black-white relations in Africa as well.Naipaul gives Africa and everyone involved in its affairs (whites, blacks and Asians) no credit whatsoever.Declining European colonial powers gave their African colonies political independence in the 1960s and a variety of demagogues like and Julius Nyerre in Tanzania who took power spouting third world varieties of socialism and Marxism.Despite claims of social and economic progress, Africa remains as backward as ever. Naipaul freely writes of his disgust with the countries and its deceived leadership from the first page of the book until the last.This book, like another reviewer noted below, certainly is not going to make it into a black studies program anytime soon.It is a relief from portraits of Africa that classify it as a tropical paradise, a land of innocents exploited by evil Europeans, or conversely an AIDS infested human disaster.Naipaul's cynicism shows Africa the way it really is-struggling, corrupt, deceived, but at the same time Afroca is chugging along optimistically in some areas, with idealism and occasional realism, and attempting to do as well as it can to develop itself.No dry textbook prose here; the book is short, easy to read, engaging and very well written.

Sadly neglected and misunderstood masterpiece
This is a wonderfully written book; Naipaul's proses flows effortlessly across the page, the connexion between thought and word is seemless.The comparatively small body of work Naipaul produced before his tragic early death has been neglected in favour of that of his less talented, but longer lived, brother (a Nobel Prizewinner).However in this one work, Naipaul's prosody surpasses anything produced either by his brother, or by other twentieth century travel writers like Thoreau.That said, some of the other reviews here are ludicrously jaundiced and do a disservice to the book itself.This is no crude work of 'anti-pc' nonsense (an American political term that the archly European Naipaul would have shuddered at).The prose is not illiberal (in the American sense of the term) but rather aristocratic, in the best tradition of Evelyn Waugh (the writer Naipaul most resembles).Like Waugh, Naipaul's caustic observations rip into the heart of human weakness and frailty, exposing the hypocrisy and cant from all sides.The pretensions of ghastly businessmen disgust him as much as the crudity of the black 'socialists'.Those who seek to defend either Marxism or any form of business enterprise system face Naipaul's perfectly expressed derision.I personally found Naipaul's lack of human feeling at the extent of Africa's poverty a little shocking but it is a rapturous pleasure to be so shocked.

Tragic, funny account of the Way We Were ....
North of South describes Shiva Naipaul's journey through Eastern Africa as it emerged from colonialism several decades ago. Optimism and energy prevailed alongside a blind faith in imported philosophies which pundits failed to translate meaningfully to the impoverished, illiterate masses around them.
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Subjects:  1. 20th Century Description And Travel    2. Africa    3. Description and travel    4. Essays & Travelogues    5. Kenya    6. Naipaul, Shiva,    7. Social Situations And Conditions    8. Tanzania    9. Travel    10. Travel - General    11. Zambia    12. Development studies    13. Journeys    14. Mozambique    15. Naipaul, Shiva    16. POLITICS & GOVERNMENT    17. Travel / Essays & Travelogues    18. Travel writing    19. Uganda   

Reviews (1)

Globetrotter Zambia and Victoria Falls (Globetrotter Travel Packs Series)
Excellent book handy size and all of the must see sights are clearly marked ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Travel / Africa    5. Travel / road maps & atlases    6. Zambia   

Reviews (1)

Zambia Map
Very detailed road map. But the must see sights are missing If you do not need the road detail the Globetrotter Zambia and Victoria Falls (Globetrotter Travel Packs Series)map provides excellent coverage of the tourist must see sites ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Travel / road maps & atlases    2. Zambia   

Reviews (6)

Verbose and superficial: a waste of money
...I bought this book to make plans for a trip to Zambia but the chapter about this country is only 40 pages long, both verbose and superficial.Don't get fooled by the "Adventuring" in the title, unless your idea of adventure is to hop by plane from lodge to lodge at $200 or $300 a night.More importantly, except for the park entrance fees, this book doesn't list any price at all (I got them from two other, excellent, travel guides).Comments on cheaper accomodations are few and disenchanted.The maps are equally few and over-simplified (the roads don't even appear!...)Finally, I looked at the chapters about the other countries and it certainly didn't change my opinion about this book.Note also that the date of the last edition (October 97) makes it relatively outdated.

Outstanding and thorough book about South Africa
This book is an outstanding resource to be read prior to traveling to South Africa.It covers many different aspects of what the experience will entail.These include the history, etiquette, positives and negatives ofeach type of travel, various diseases and safety precautions one shouldtake.In addition, he thoroughly delivers every aspect of each southafrican country...ie. countryside, animals, weather, and history.Thisbook in interesting, exciting, and educational!

Outstanding and thorough book about South Africa
This book is an outstanding resource to be read prior to traveling to South Africa.It covers many different aspects of what the experience will entail.These include the history, etiquette, positives and negatives ofeach type of travel, various diseases and safety precautions one shouldtake.In addition, he thoroughly delivers every aspect of each southafrican country...ie. countryside, animals, weather, and history.Thisbook in interesting, exciting, and educational! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Africa, Southern    3. Guidebooks    4. Safaris    5. Travel    6. Travel - Foreign    7. Wildlife watching    8. Active outdoor pursuits    9. Southern Africa    10. Sports & Recreation / General    11. Travel & holiday guides   

Features

• Folded Map

Reviews (1)

Not the best of what is available
While early in the planning stages for a recent trip to Zambia, I purchased the Zambia & Victoria Falls Travel Map bundled with International Travel Map's Zambia Map; I also purchased Chris McIntyre's Bradt Zambia Guide. I quickly abandoned this insufficiently detailed map as it offered nothing that was not provided by the other map or McIntyre's book.
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Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Maps    3. Maps & Road Atlases    4. Travel    5. Travel - Foreign    6. Travel / Africa    7. Travel / road maps & atlases    8. Zambia   

Subjects:  1. Big game hunting    2. Fiction    3. General    4. Hunting    5. Rhodesia    6. Travel - Foreign    7. Zimbabwe   

Reviews (2)

He brings Africa to you
I laughed and laughed, David Bennun really brings Africa back.He just knows people and the world you live in when you are there.I love Zambia and Kenya, and he just made it alive again.Thanks for the great read, and I won't sell mine!

First Symptom? Serious Laughter!.....
No oxymoron that. Not in David Bennun's hands. A Brit whose family left England for Colonial Africa in his boyhood, Bennun's nature evidently never expatriated the stiff upper lip, the sharp eye for the contagiously absurd, or---and this may be Fever's greatest selling point, for it makes all the rest so possible---the palate for language as only the bellwether British wield it. Far from a pythonesque humor; you know: with simple silliness the Wont that you often wish Wouldn't? Bennun is drop-dead funny. And I don't laugh-out-loud easily. More than once, my chest having long since rounded the corner into some soundless seismic convulsing, I dropped the book on my faintly blue-feeling face from asphyxiating in bed. (The story of his Jack Russell terrier alone is worth humor's All Time list.) And I ask you: How often do any of us ever delve along a literary skill that wastes not a single sentence? You can count those masters of concise thoroughness on half the one hand you use to hold up a favorite book (or in my case, not). Bennun is as aerodynamic an author, in his own milieu, as the greatest I've ever seen: and if that makes him the Nabakov of Satire? then Vladimir--not David--it is. Damn near every utterance morphs into a garrulous gem, no sentence dispensable, most quip-laden and quotable, all culminating in chapters memorable to a one about the real Africa in David's openly unreal vantage, his own foibles always foremost, from a self-deprecating wit-in-progress. Myself?.....Never one to let the complete absense of company dampen a conversation, I'd often read things in the book over again immediately--aloud--just to share them with somebody---Anybody---me usually the handiest, splitting my own sides with disemboweling dependability. But, like the boy in the book, I too have a hard time learning my lessons. Why even now, from time to time, foolishly undeterred by my bedtime injuries I read on, headless, only to wind up again the very picture of casualty: a free arm broken over my eyes, elbow high, while alone beneath it my open mouth, wide as the search for affordable dentists, palsies off in porcine snorts, gaped like a gash so they tell me, the very wound of the proverbial Death From Laughing. So: don't say you haven't been warned........
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Subjects:  1. Essays & Travelogues    2. General    3. Travel - General    4. Biography & Autobiography / General    5. Biography: general    6. KENYA_BIOGRAPHY    7. Kenya    8. Travel / Essays & Travelogues    9. Zambia   

Subjects:  1. Biography & Autobiography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Biography/Autobiography    4. Personal Memoirs    5. Travel writing    6. Zimbabwe   

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Sociology    3. Travel - Foreign   

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Business & Economics    3. Business/Economics    4. Exports & Imports    5. Government & Business    6. International - General    7. Travel - Foreign    8. International business    9. TRAVEL & HOLIDAY   

Subjects:  1. Description and travel    2. Rhodesia    3. Western Province (Zambia)   

Subjects:  1. Description and travel    2. Hunting    3. Malawi    4. Zambia   

Reviews (2)

Comprehensive
I bought 3 books on Zambia before my trip - this one was by far the best.Very comprehensive, contained all that info that I needed.Some of the prices were off (the exchange rate vs. the dollar is now much better than at the time of printing which explains some of the difference (about 3700 kwacha to the dollar today, July, 2000) so the delta was always favorable).Two lodges were estimated to be about $200-$250/night, we found $100/night.Zambia, we learned as probably the best untouched reserves for gaming.Amazing, beautiful places, truly remote.Be aware that moving from one place to another in Zambia takes many hours on the road, and the roads are not good. I'd advise hiring someone to fly you to the remote airstrips rather than the typical 8 hour surface transfers.Also, remember to sit back and relax:the "Z Factor", as they call it locally, means that nothing happens on schedule : )If you're prepared for this mentally, you'll have a most enjoyable trip!

top Zambia guide
This guide is the most comprehensive guide you will find if you are going to Zambia.This country usually only gets a brief section at the back of guidebooks for neighbouring countries such as Malawi or Zimbabwe.McIntyrecovers many aspects of travel to Zambia from flora and fauna toaccomodation and transport.A good comprehensive guide covering the wholeof Zambia with excellant maps especially of the national parks.On thedown side there are very few photographs, these would add to this book, andwould put some flesh onto the bones of the high standard of commentary. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Travel & holiday guides    5. Travel / Africa    6. Zambia   

Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Butt, G. E    3. Description and travel    4. Missionaries    5. Missions    6. Zambia   

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Area / regional studies    5. Places & peoples: general interest    6. Reference works   

Subjects:  1. Description and travel    2. Rhodesia    3. South Africa   

Subjects:  1. Description and travel    2. Malawi    3. Mozambique    4. Ngoni (African people)    5. Voyages And Travels    6. Zambia    7. Mpezeni    8. Wiese, Carl   

Subjects:  1. Description and travel    2. Zambia