This is a book about one of the first recorded pilgrims who climbed Mount Sinai; it’s about Amelia Earhart, the famous American aviator whose story and disappearance continues to capture the world’s imagination. It’s the story of a doomed expedition to discover the North West Passage, and the tale of Marco Polo, who remained at the court of the Kublai Khan for an incredible 17 years. The 50 Greatest Explorers in History brings to life the pioneers in aviation flying thousands of miles with the most basic of maps in open cockpits, exposed to the elements and the unrelenting smell of petrol fumes. They travel by steamboat, on horseback, by rickshaw, motorbike, train, swim with piranhas, embark into black nothingness in new spacecraft, explore by Jeep, yachts, tea boats and elephants, disguise themselves as men, take canoes and use innovative, advanced technological scuba equipment. Going where in many cases, no man or woman had ever gone before, some women featured in this books were often denied respect, acknowledgment, or recognition and they determined to break the ‘men's club’ mentality of global exploration from which they were excluded.

Penetrating biographies written by a group of distinguished travel writers, broadcasters, and historians reveal the lives, motives, and passions of forty major explorers in history. It has always been mankind’s gift, or curse, to be inquisitive, and through the ages people have been driven to explore the limits of the worlds known to them—and beyond. Here are the stories of forty of the world’s greatest explorers from Europe, America, Asia, and Australia. These are men and women who changed our perception of the world through their courageous adventures. Organized thematically, the book opens with the oceanic journeys of five hundred years ago, when the great era of recorded exploration began. The following sections look at The Land, Rivers, Polar Ice, Deserts, Life on Earth, and New Frontiers. Many of these explorers recounted their journeys in vivid firsthand accounts; others were superb artists or photographers. The book features quotes from their journals and reports, and it is illustrated with paintings, photographs, engravings, and maps, so that we can experience their adventures through their own eyes and in their own words. Featured explorers include: Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, James Cook, Lewis and Clark, Richard Burton, Samuel de Champlain, David Livingstone, Roald Amundsen, Gertrude Bell, Alexander von Humboldt, Yuri Gagarin, and Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

This is a book about one of the first recorded pilgrims who climbed Mount Sinai; it's about Amelia Earhart, the famous American aviator whose story and disappearance continues to capture the world's imagination. It's the story of a doomed expedition to discover the North West Passage, and the tale of Marco Polo, who remained at the court of the Kublai Khan for an incredible 17 years.'Great Explorers' brings to life the pioneers in aviation flying thousands of miles with the most basic of maps in open cock-pits, exposed to the elements and the unrelenting smell of petrol fumes. They travel by steamboat, on horse-back, by rickshaw, motorbike, train, swim with piranhas, embark into black nothingness in new space craft, explore by jeep, yachts, tea boats and elephants, disguise themselves as men, take canoes and use innovative, advanced technological scuba equipment.Going where in many cases, no man or woman had ever gone before, some women featured in 'Great Explorers' were often denied respect, acknowledgement or recognition and they determined to break the 'mens club' mentality of global exploration from which they were excluded.Marco Polo:"This desert is reported to be so long that it would take a year to go from end to end; and at the narrowest point it takes a month to cross it. It consists entirely of mountains and sands and valleys. There is nothing at all to eat."

"Travel back in time and meet the explorers! Who was Leif Erikson? What did Christopher Columbus discover? When was the moon landing? Find the answers to these questions and more with interactive flaps that bring history to life. Don't just read about the explorers ... meet them!"--Page 4 of cover

The stories of adventurers who have set out from their native lands on great journeys of exploration, always in danger and sometimes at the cost of their lives.

Includes extracts from Columbus's journal of his first voyage. Includes Cortes's letter to King Charles V describing Tenochtitlan and the Aztec Empire. Includes passages from Antonio Pigafetta, a member of Magellan's crew. Includes descriptions of both the Aztec and Inca Empires. Includes pictures of the explorers and important Includes a Bibliography for further reading. *Includes a Table of Contents. Marco Polo was hardly the only European merchant or trader who traveled to the Far East, but it was his written account of his travels that would generate extreme interest in Asia. Having described such a rich land full of desired resources, Marco Polo's travels became a source for European cartographers of the era, and they became the impetus for men like Christopher Columbus, who added his own annotations to Marco Polo's account and used it as a reference for his own legendary expedition in search of the Far East. Centuries later, historians have scoured over the account and what was written in an effort to validate its authenticity, leading to sharp debates today. The most seminal event of the last millennium might also be its most controversial. As schoolchildren have been taught for over 500 years, "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue." In October of that year, the Italian Christopher Columbus immortalized himself by landing in the New World and beginning the process of European settlement in the Americas for Spain, bringing the Age of Exploration to a new hemisphere with him. Ironically, the Italian had led a Spanish expedition, in part because the Portugese rejected his offers in the belief that sailing west to Asia would take too long. Today Ferdinand Magellan is remembered as the first man to circumnavigate the globe, an ironic legacy given that he died half a world away from completing that journey. But though it ended catastrophically for Magellan and most of his crew, his expedition accomplished its objective, and in economic terms, the opening up of new trade routes with Asia was a more significant development than the conquest of the Americas for the Europeans of the early 16th century. The life of Sir Francis Drake, or, more precisely, the tale of it, is one of those prime examples that history is written by the winners. Drake was the most famous sailor of the Elizabethan Era, and he has long been considered a hero by the English. His successes against the Spanish as a captain and a privateer were legendary, and Drake was celebrated for fighting the Queen's enemies, sinking their ships, and capturing the treasure that would otherwise be used to finance attacks on England. Drake vigorously pursued every mission given to him by Elizabeth I, and brought all his skill, experience and training to bear against her enemies. He was recognized at court for his valor, praised in story and song, and remembered for the kind of personality and esprit de corps that the English have long desired and celebrated in their military heroes.

Henry Morton Stanley was a cruel imperialist - a bad man of Africa. Or so we think: but as Tim Jeal brilliantly shows, the reality of Stanley's life is yet more extraordinary. Few people know of his dazzling trans-Africa journey, a heart-breaking epic of human endurance which solved virtually every one of the continent's remaining geographical puzzles. With new documentary evidence, Jeal explores the very nature of exploration and reappraises a reputation, in a way that is both moving and truly majestic.

Lord Howe Island has Australia's highest diversity and endemicity of land snails. These beautiful but vulnerable creatures are not as readily observed or as well understood as the bird or plant life of the island, but play a vital role in the terrestrial ecosystem. For the first time, the native and endemic land snails of Lord Howe Island are shown together in this illustrated guide, designed for anyone from enthusiastic nature lovers to land snail specialists. Features of the guide include a pictorial guide to families and a dichotomous key for easy identification, and detailed descriptions of each genus and species, including distribution maps and photographs of the shell and (where available) the live animal. All descriptive terms are explained and illustrated in the introductory material and in the glossary.

The urge to explore is an ancient one in the human species. The earliest explorations were driven by physical needs like food and shelter. But later with greater resources at their disposal; human beings became curious about their extended geographical environment and began to venture further from their safe zone. Over time mankind began to recognize that with successful exploration came rewards. In fact access to virgin natural resources was one of the driving factors behind the Golden Age of Exploration during the 15th and 16th centuries when many significant discoveries were made about the geography of the Earth. Again in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; much of the exploration of Africa and Asia were driven by the need to discover and colonize new markets for goods made by European countries. The 20 Greatest Explorers of the World traces these currents in the journey of human exploration by focusing on the most famous explorers in history as well as some lesser known names who are nevertheless responsible for charting new territories. Ranging from classical Greece to the mid twentieth century; traversing all parts of the globe and indeed beyond it; these explorers are testament to the fact that the desire to know and discover has inspired humans across time and space in history.

A Financial Times and Observer "best summer read" 'With its union of practicality and magic, a kitchen is a portal offering extended range and providing unlikely paths out of the ordinary. Offering opportunities to cook, imagine and create ways back into other times, other lives and other territories. Central Asia, Turkey, Ukraine, the South Caucasus, Russia, the Baltics and Poland. Places that have eased into my marrow over the years shaping my life, writing and thinking. They are here, these lands I return to, in this kitchen.' A welcoming refuge with its tempting pantry, shelves of books and inquisitive dog, Caroline Eden finds comfort away from the road in her basement Edinburgh kitchen. Join her as she cooks recipes from her travels, reflects on past adventures and contemplates the kitchen's unique ability to tell human stories. This is a hauntingly honest, and at times heartbreaking, memoir with the smell, taste and preparation of food at its heart. From late night baking as a route back to Ukraine to capturing the beauty of Uzbek porcelain, and from the troublesome nature of food and art in Poland to the magic of cloudberries, Cold Kitchen celebrates the importance of curiosity and of feeling at home in the world.