The Last Frontier; The White Man's War for Civilisation in Africa

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931. Later printing. Hardcover. Good. ix, [4], 291, [1] pages. Illustrations. Index. Some wear to top and bottom spine edges. Small erasures and notation inside front boards and front free endpapers. E. Alexander Powell (August 16, 1879 - November 13, 1957) was an American war correspondent during World War I and author. He generally published material under the name E. Alexander Powell; his full name was Edward Alexander Powell. In 1898-1899 he worked for the Syracuse Journal, and in 1902 he became editor of Craftsman. From 1903-1904 he was based in London, England, and in 1905-1906 he worked in the Near East as a correspondent for British and American publications. From 1906-1909 he was a Consular official in Syria and Egypt. Powell was a war correspondent during World War I and his position as a neutral allowed him access to both sides of the battle lines, from 1914 onwards. With the entry of the United States into the Great War in 1917, Powell was commissioned as a captain in military intelligence. The story of the conquest of a continent by men with levels and transits, drills and dynamite, plough and spades, forms a chronicle of courage, daring, resource, and tenacity unsurpassed in history. They are no idlers, these pioneers of the desert, the jungle, and the veldt; they live with danger and hardship for their daily mates; they die with their boots on from snake-bite or sleeping-sickness or Somali spear; and they made new markets and interesting venues for those who came after. The areas of African exploration mark the line of the Last Frontier where the white-helmeted pioneers were fighting the battles and solving the problems of civilisation.