Candice Millard

Set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers, a story of courage and adventure brings to life the rivalry between two enemies--a decorated soldier and a young aristocrat/Army officer--as they set out to find the mysterious headwaters of the Nile River.

"At age twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England one day, despite the fact he had just lost his first election campaign for Parliament. He believed that to achieve his goal he must do something spectacular on the battlefield. Despite deliberately putting himself in extreme danger as a British Army officer in colonial wars in India and Sudan, and as a journalist covering a Cuban uprising...

Millard presents a narrative account of Churchill's heroics during the Boer War, describing his daring escape from rebel captors, trek through hundreds of miles with virtually no supplies, and eventual return to South Africa to liberate the soldiers captured with him.

For millennia, the location of the Nile's headwaters were a mystery. But as Europeans mapped the globe to grow their empires, two Brits set out for the Nile's source--becoming violent rivals in the process.