The Oxford Book of Exploration Hardcover - 1993

From the rear cover

Selected by Robin Hanbury-Tenison, whom the Sunday Times called the 'greatest explorer of the last twenty years', this is the first comprehensive anthology of the writings of explorers through the ages. The ultimate travel writing, these are the words of those who changed the world through their pioneering search for new lands, new peoples, and new experiences. The anthology does not aim to include every moment of discovery, but to give a flavour of the emotions and motives of those who took part in the major events of exploration. Divided into geographical sections, the book takes us to Asia with Vasco da Gama, Francis Younghusband, and Wilfrid Thesiger, to the Americas with Cortes, Frobisher, and Cabot, to the Pacific with Drake, Banks, and Bougainville, to Africa with Burton, Livingstone, and Stanley, and to the Poles with Peary, Amundsen, and Scott. The legendary explorers are those who were lucky and determined enough to discover something which changed the rest of the world's view of itself. Men such as Marco Polo, Columbus, Magellan, and Cook revealed previously unknown continents and cultures because they were prepared to go beyond what others saw as reasonable limits. All the explorers in this book share a fortitude and self-awareness which carries them through the severest hardships, whether cold, heat, illness, hunger, or starvation. Their failures are often as illuminating as their successes, revealing what it was that drove them to go beyond the possible and so deserve to be called explorers.

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Citations

• Library Journal, 12/01/1993, Page 0