Ken Lizzio is a professor of Anthropology and Middle East Studies and author of Embattled Saints: My Year with the Sufis of Afghanistan, an ethnography of an Islamic mystical brotherhood that won the IBPA’s 2015 Ben Franklin Silver Award.
He has also written several books on the Great American West. Currently, he resides in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
About Spectacular Failures
Spectacular Failures takes the reader deep into the heart of Africa with first-hand accounts of early Europeans’ observations and interpretations about a continent that was, to them, a whole new world.
When Author Ken Lizzio stumbled across a narrative by naval commander James Hingston Tuckey, written in 1816 when he’d set out to find the source of the congo River near Kinshasa, it seemed like an omen. Lizzio had once lived there himself and he felt compelled to learn more.
Tuckey’s expedition, dedicated to the noble pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, was staffed with scientists, some of the best – if eccentric – of the day – zoologists, biologists, and draftsmen. They gathered specimens of the strange flora and fauna they encountered, took meticulous notes of their observations, and rendered beautiful sketches of many of the things they encountered, some of which are included in this book. Though much meticulous planning had gone into making the mission a success, it ended so suddenly, so tragically… which may be why Tuckey’s journey, up until now, had been lost to history, as were the other British explorers featured in Spectacular Failures.