THE STRONG BROWN GOD: The Story of...

THE STRONG BROWN GOD: The Story of the River Niger by Sanche de Gramont (Houghton Mifflin: $10.95, illustrated). Stretching 2,600 miles, the Niger is the 10th-longest river in the world. Its name comes from the Tuareg term, n’ger-n-gero , or “river of rivers.” The Niger is something of a geographic anomaly: It flows east (away from the sea) for much of its length, then turns south to a delta so vast that the early European explorers didn’t realize it was formed by a single river. This exceptional book traces the fascination the Niger has held for Europeans from the late 18th Century, when wealthy British dilettantes began to underwrite expeditions to West Africa, through the turn of the 20th Century. Armchair explorers will delight in Gramont’s vivid blend of history, geography, ethnology and politics, which simply outclasses the recent spate of first-person travel narratives.