A Training School for Elephants

‘History and travelogue combine wonderfully in this tale of colonial plunder and hubris… Roberts is such a vivid travel writer that you forget what a brilliant historian she is. She has the water-diviner’s gift for stories in unlikely places.’ GuardianIn 1879 King Leopold II of Belgium launched an ambitious plan to plunder Africa’s resources. The key to the continent, or so he thought, was its elephants – if only he could control them. And so he had four tamed Asian elephants shipped from India to the East African coast, where they were marched inland towards Congo. The aim was to establish a training school for African elephants.Following the route of this long-forgotten expedition, Roberts travels to Belgium, Iraq, India, Tanzania and Congo digging deep into the records to bring to life a compelling cast of historic characters and modern voices, from ivory dealers and powerful chiefs to birders and Catholic nuns. Vivid and poignant, A Training School for Elephants grapples with our history of animal and human exploitation and reveals an extraordinary – and enduring – tale of colonial greed, ineptitude, hypocrisy and folly.