Why read The Lunatic Express?

Book cover of The Lunatic Express: The Magnificent Saga of the Railway's Journey Into Africa

Book description

In 1895, George Whitehouse arrived at the east African post of Mombasa to perform an engineering miracle: the building of the Mombasa-Nairobi-Lake Victoria Railway - a 600-mile route that was largely unmapped and barely explored. Behind Mombasa lay a scorched, waterless desert. Beyond, a horizonless scrub country climbed toward a…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Lunatic Express as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Stephen E. Eisenbraun

Author

Kenya was an exotic territory for British colonial interests in the late 19th century. For reasons almost impossible to understand today, the British decided to build a railroad from Mombasa, the seaport on the Indian Ocean, through the Kenyan savannah, to Kampala, a city of some riches in the far interior of what is now Uganda. The story of the building of the railroad at the end of the 19th century is hair-raising, thanks to Miller’s classic history, as imported Indian workers had to endure predatory lions, harsh climates, and raging rivers to forge across the frontier. That…

From Stephen's list on South Asia and East Africa to keep you awake.