This remarkable book is a collection of inspired essays loosely linked to David Livingstone, the explorer of Africa. In the opening and closing chapters, however, it focuses more directly on the ambivalent memorialization of Livingstone’s demise in Britain, and its mixed reception in London, which slighted the contribution of Africans and their loyalty to, and admiration of, Livingstone. The book implies that Livingstone’s sad death and the transport of his body to London somehow captured Britain’s emotional association with its empire but, as Lewis shows later, Livingstone’s accomplishments and his nobility were more celebrated on the eve of World War I, when his Christian humanitarianism and anti-slavery crusade were glorified to justify Britain’s (potentially dubious) colonial accomplishments.
Ultimately, Lewis advances the striking image of Livingstone as “consistently pump[ing] the beating heart of liberal British imperialism” (212). “The death and memorialization of Livingstone,” she writes, “made a powerful contribution to the...