- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: Granta Books (27 Mar 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1862075271
- ISBN-13: 978-1862075276
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.3 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 962,094 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
The Sword and the Cross is a captivating tale of two French adventurers, one military and one spiritual, who helped to tame the desolate wilderness of the Sahara. Born in the mid 19th century into aristocratic families Charles de Foucauld and Henri Laperrine became soldiers and explorers. Foucauld was dramatically converted to Catholicism and left the French army to follow a way of self-denial so great that even the Trappist order seemed easy. He lived in the Sahara among the barbaric Touareg tribes as a hermit. However he never lost contact with Laperrine and the French imperialist dream, supporting his countryman with intelligence and contacts throughout his life. Laperrine admired and supported Foucauld. Fergus Fleming tells the story of their friendship and collaboration with verve, precision and a restrained passion.
It is difficult to fault this book. Fleming has the insight to unfold a fascinating historical period through the lives of two of its key players. Laperrine and Foucauld are fascinating and contradictory characters on their own, but weaving their two stories together is a brilliant stroke as both men reveal a different but vital aspect of the French character and the motivation for France's strange zeal for the conquest of the Sahara. Fleming tells a story of high romance, but with British detachment and insight. He weaves meticulous detail into an easy style and narrates a complicated story with confidence. As such, he has given us both a serious historical study and a rip-roaring adventure yarn. --Dwight Longenecker
Review
"ON BARROW'S BOYS: 'Absolutely gripping...part thriller and part black comedy' Ian Hislop 'Gripping, hilarious, often flabbergasting, this is a splendid adventure book' Independent 'This is travel history of the best kind: entertaining, informed and opinionated' Sunday Times 'Fleming has an eye for a ripping yarn and a gift for spinning it. His anecdotal asides are gripping...He is a lively interpreter, with bags of narrative flair' Literary Review
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
About 10 years ago I was working in the Algerian Sahara on a oil exploration survey crew. One day we were taken by our gendarme escort to a water well in the desert overlooked by a small mud fort. The fort was very small and would have been occupied by no more than a dozen French troops, it would have been used to control the movement of bedouin in the desert. It was literally in a sea of sand in the middle of nowhere and beyond my comprehension how and why anyone would choose to live there. This book is that story brought to life. I have read several of Fergus Flemings books and I think this one is by far the best, beautifully told, gripping reading you will not put it down.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Fergus Fleming always seems to write books that grip the imagination with their accounts of intrepid exploration and amazing feats of endurance. "The sword and the cross" is not exception, recounting in an often amusing fashion the exploits of Charles Foucauld and Henri Laperrine who, by the respective methods of christianity and military prowess sought to sugjugate the natives of the Sahara.
Ultimately, Frances' endeavours to acquire the North West of Africa towards the turn of the last century proved to be futile and by the 1960's it was clear that the effects were a complete waste of time. Fleming delights in revealing the absurdity of the French ambitions. However, this does not detract from the story of these two friends who thoroughly investigated some of the least hospitable parts of the planet. Had Foucauld and Laperrine been British, they would probably been buried in Westminster Abbey.
Like Fleming's other books, this is a difficult book to put down, if not quite in the same league as the two volumes on polar exploration that make a far more interesting story. This is probably due to the fact that these two Frenchmen were probably more sane than some of the characters in his previous offerings. Never-the-less, the ironic nature of Fleming's writng means this book must be recommended.
Ultimately, Frances' endeavours to acquire the North West of Africa towards the turn of the last century proved to be futile and by the 1960's it was clear that the effects were a complete waste of time. Fleming delights in revealing the absurdity of the French ambitions. However, this does not detract from the story of these two friends who thoroughly investigated some of the least hospitable parts of the planet. Had Foucauld and Laperrine been British, they would probably been buried in Westminster Abbey.
Like Fleming's other books, this is a difficult book to put down, if not quite in the same league as the two volumes on polar exploration that make a far more interesting story. This is probably due to the fact that these two Frenchmen were probably more sane than some of the characters in his previous offerings. Never-the-less, the ironic nature of Fleming's writng means this book must be recommended.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In his previous books "Barrow's Boys" and "Ninety Degrees North", FergusFleming has proved himself to be a fine story teller of man's desire toexplore the least hospitable parts of the planet. These books have largelycentred around the polar regions whilst "The Sword and the Cross" changestack and centres around France's endeavours to create colonies in theSahara. It is interesting to learn that France was essentially tucked upby the British when it came to the "Scramble for Africa" at the end of the19th Century.
Billed as a biography of two intrepid explorers, CharlesFoucauld and Henri Laperrine, it is the former who dominates the story ashis religious convinctions led him to seek out increasingly remote andhostile parts of the desert in which to live his life of solitude.(andspying for the French Government at the same time !)The militaristicLaperrine emerges as the one more in keeping with the prevalent ideas ofthe age, leading his army against the hostile tuaregs.
The enduranceof both men was staggering but I found Fleming's subjects to be lessinteresting than those of his previous efforts given the more eccentricnature of the characters that populate the earlier books. Laperrine andFoucauld appear a little too earnest and the irony that suffuses theprevious writing is missing because of this. Never-the-less, Fleming tellstheir story in a entertaining manner, not without a keen sense of humourand you feel that he enjoyed writing the last chapter that demonstratedjust how futile and worthless France's attempt at subjugating the NorthWest of Africa proved to be.Within 60 years, all that had been achieved byFoucuald and Laperrine had slopped from the hands of the French just likethe grains of sand that make up this most desolate expanse.
All inall, this is an engrossing and enjoyable read about two explorers of whomI was previously ignorant.
Billed as a biography of two intrepid explorers, CharlesFoucauld and Henri Laperrine, it is the former who dominates the story ashis religious convinctions led him to seek out increasingly remote andhostile parts of the desert in which to live his life of solitude.(andspying for the French Government at the same time !)The militaristicLaperrine emerges as the one more in keeping with the prevalent ideas ofthe age, leading his army against the hostile tuaregs.
The enduranceof both men was staggering but I found Fleming's subjects to be lessinteresting than those of his previous efforts given the more eccentricnature of the characters that populate the earlier books. Laperrine andFoucauld appear a little too earnest and the irony that suffuses theprevious writing is missing because of this. Never-the-less, Fleming tellstheir story in a entertaining manner, not without a keen sense of humourand you feel that he enjoyed writing the last chapter that demonstratedjust how futile and worthless France's attempt at subjugating the NorthWest of Africa proved to be.Within 60 years, all that had been achieved byFoucuald and Laperrine had slopped from the hands of the French just likethe grains of sand that make up this most desolate expanse.
All inall, this is an engrossing and enjoyable read about two explorers of whomI was previously ignorant.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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Published on 21 April 2006 by Mr. D. W. Mcconnell
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I began reading this book with a little reluctance as it had never occurred to me to read anything on the subject before, but I had really enjoyed reading "Barrow's Boys", also by... Read more
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Anglocentric Rubbish
With a snearing, self-indulgent and arrogant attitude this writer smears this history of a colonial age. Read more
Published on 8 Aug 2004
45 degrees in the shade
I confess that I have no particular interest in the Sahara, or the history of French Africa in general. Read more
Published on 8 Jun 2004 by R. W. Mackenzie
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