From jacket flap:
In these days, when space travel and trips to the moon have come within the bounds of men’s planning, it is easy to dismiss as insignificant the achievements of past explorers. G. R. Crone, librarian at the Royal Geographical Society, has compiled an anthology which is not only a comprehensive and representative picture of the history of exploration but a true testimony to the outstanding courage and resilience of those men and women who, at the risk of their lives, were willing to face the hazards and dangers of journeys into the unknown.
From this rich and varied collection of extracts, taken from explorers’ own writings, we catch a glimpse of the boisterous high spirits of Mary Kingsley as she takes a hazardous ride down the river Ogowe, Stanley’s coolness in the face of hostile, threatening natives, the ingeniousness of Cortes with his emergency-built bridge; we feel the agony of Donald Thomson’s swollen feet as he treks through Australia, the suspense of Fawcett’s starving companions at the sight of a deer, the terribleness of the desert endured by Thesiger in Arabia.
Explorers featured include:
Hsuan-Tsang
Ibn Battuta
Alexander von Humboldt
Isabella Bird Bishop
Marc Aurel Stein
Wilfred Thesiger
Edmund Hillary
James Bruce
David Livingstone
Christopher Columbus
Charles Darwin
James Cook
Ferdinand Magellan
Fridtjof Nansen
