The life of David Livingstone, nineteenth-century missionary and explorer, has been the subject of numerous biographies and studies since his death in the African subcontinent in 1873. In his time he was revered as the exemplar of the Christian missionary, the lone traveler battling disease and deprivation to bring Christianity to the African interior. The fact that he made only one temporary convert in almost thirty years of travel and residency in Africa did little to detract from this image. Modern reassessments have illustrated that Livingstone's importance lies in his mapping of the African interior, an endeavor completed under arduous circumstances, and his espousal in his published travel accounts of the twin role of commerce and Christianity in developing and exploiting African resources and society. These accounts were to prove significant in focusing European attention on Africa and its potential value as a colonial region and thereby in paving...