One woman, one bike and one richly entertaining, perception-altering journey of discovery. In 2015, as the Syrian War raged and the refugee crisis reached its peak, Rebecca Lowe set off on her bicycle across the Middle East. Driven by a desire to learn more about this troubled region and its relationship with the West, Lowe's 11,000-kilometre journey took her through Europe to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, the Gulf and finally to Iran. It was an odyssey through landscapes and history that captured her heart, but also a deeply challenging cycle across mountains, deserts and repressive police states that nearly defeated her. Plagued by punctures and battling temperatures ranging from -6 to 48C, Lowe was rescued frequently by farmers and refugees, villagers and urbanites alike, and relied almost entirely on the kindness and hospitality of locals to complete this living portrait of the modern Middle East. This is her evocative, deeply researched and often very funny account of her travels - and the people, politics and culture she encountered. 'Terrifically compelling ... bursting with humour, adventure and insight into the rich landscapes and history of the Middle East. Lowe recounts the beauty, kindnesses and complexities of the lands she travels through with an illuminating insight. A wonderful new travel writer.' Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Kangchenjunga is the third highest mountain in the world and a notoriously difficult and dangerous mountain to climb. First climbed from the west in 1955 by a British team comprising Joe Brown, George Band, Tony Streather and Norman Hardie, it waited over twenty years for a second ascent. The third ascent, from the north, was made in 1979 by a four-man team including the visionary British alpinist Doug Scott. Completed before his death in 2020, and edited by Catherine Moorehead, Kangchenjunga is Doug Scott's final book. Scott explores the mountain and its varied people - the mountain sits on the border between Nepal and Sikkim in north-east India - before going on to look at Western approaches and early climbing attempts on the mountain. Kangchenjunga was in fact long believed to be the highest mountain in the world, until in the nineteenth century it was demonstrated that Peak XV - Everest - was taller. Out of respect for the beliefs of the Sikkimese, no climber has ever set foot on the very top of Kangchenjunga, the sacred summit. Scott's own relationship with the mountain began in 1978, three years after his first British ascent of Everest with Dougal Haston. The assembled team featured some of the greatest mountaineers in history: Scott, Joe Tasker, Peter Boardman and Georges Bettembourg. The plan was for a stripped-down expedition the following spring - minimal Sherpa support, no radios, largely self-financed. It was the first time a mountain of this scale had been attempted by a new and difficult route without the use of oxygen, and with such a small team. Scott, Tasker and Boardman summited on 16 May 1979, further consolidating their legends in this golden era. Kangchenjunga is Doug Scott's tribute to this sacred mountain, a paean for a Himalayan giant, written by a giant of Himalayan climbing.

In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton set forth to make history with the first-ever crossing of the Antarctic continent. He sailed into the Weddell Sea aboard the Endurance, while a ship called the Aurora sailed into the Ross Sea to create a lifeline of vital food and fuel depots to supply the epic crossing. Yet all went tragically wrong when the Aurora broke free of her moorings in an Antarctic gale and stranded ten men ashore. Left with little more than the clothing on their backs and scavenged equipment, the men vowed to carry on in the face of impossible odds. Meanwhile the rest of the Aurora crew, cast adrift at the mercy of the elements, battled for survival. The lost men struggled to save themselves and carry out their mission with little hope of rescue.

Throughout 1949 and 1950 H.W. 'Bill' Tilman mounted pioneering expeditions to Nepal and its Himalayan mountains, taking advantage of some of the first access to the country for Western travellers in the 20th century. Tilman and his party-including a certain Sherpa Tenzing Norgay-trekked into the Kathmandu Valley and on to the Langtang region, where the highs and lows began. They first explored the Ganesh Himal, before moving on to the Jugal Himal and the following season embarking on an ambitious trip to Annapurna and Everest. Manaslu was their first objective, but left to 'better men', and Annapurna IV very nearly climbed instead but for bad weather which dogged the whole expedition. Needless to say, Tilman was leading some very lightweight expeditions into some seriously heavyweight mountains. After the Annapurna adventure Tilman headed to Everest with-among others-Dr Charles Houston. Approaching from the delights of Namche Bazaar, the party made progress up the flanks of Pumori to gaze as best they could into the Western Cwm, and at the South Col and South-East Ridge approach to the summit of Everest. His observations were both optimistic and pessimistic: 'One cannot write off the south side as impossible until the approach from the head of the West Cwm to this remarkably airy col has been seen.' But then of the West Cwm: 'A trench overhung by these two tremendous walls might easily become a grave for any party which pitched its camp there.' Nepal Himalaya presents Tilman's favourite sketches, encounters with endless yetis, trouble with the porters, his obsessive relationship with alcohol and issues with the food. And so Tilman departs Nepal for the last time proper with these retiring words: 'If a man feels he is failing to achieve this stern standard he should perhaps withdraw from a field of such high endeavour as the Himalaya.'

The peace activist and founder of Climb for Tibet attempts a peace climb to the top of Kilimanjaro For Tess Burrows climbing to the Roof of Africa was to be the final step to fulfill her dream. This gutsy and compassionate grandmother has spent more than a decade pushing herself to incredible limits. She has climbed the world's highest summits and trekked to both the North and South Poles to call out the thousands of peace messages she's collected from every nation on earth. On this latest journey, share in Tess's experiences of the vibrancy and colors of Africa and its people. Be with her on the profound challenges of the climb. A climb where as a metaphor for people to pull together, she attempts to pull a tire packed with peace messages up the famed summit of Africa's highest mountain, Kilimanjaro. Is passion alone enough to make something happen?

May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth is a privileged glimpse into the private correspondence of the officers and sailors who set out in May 1845 on the Erebus and Terror for Sir John Franklin's fateful expedition to the Arctic. The letters of the crew and their correspondents begin with the journey's inception and early planning, going on to recount the ships' departure from the river Thames, their progress up the eastern coast of Great Britain to Stromness in Orkney, and the crew's exploits as far as the Whalefish Islands off the western coast of Greenland, from where the ships forever departed the society that sent them forth. As the realization dawned that something was amiss, heartfelt letters to the missing were sent with search expeditions; those letters, returned unread, tell poignant stories of hope. Assembled completely and conclusively from extensive archival research, including in far-flung family and private collections, the correspondence allows the reader to peer over the shoulders of these men, to experience their excitement and anticipation, their foolhardiness, and their fears. The Franklin expedition continues to excite enthusiasts and scholars worldwide. May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth provides new insights into the personalities of those on board, the significance of the voyage as they saw it, and the dawning awareness of the possibility that they would never return to British shores or their families.

The Polar Book created as a facsimile of a now very scarce publication for the British Polar Exhibition of 1930 that celebrated the history of Polar discoveries and expeditions of the day. This is the first edition as a case bound hardback, complete with two coloured maps designed by John Bartholomew. This book celebrates Polar discoveries and expeditions, with chapters on the history of Polar discoveries, geophysics, geology, flora and fauna along with equipment needed and used at the time. Contributors: G T Atkinson and H R Mil. The Foreword is by L.C. Bernacchi.

In 1934, in the middle of the Great Depression, millionaire Charles Bedaux spent $250,000 in an attempt to cross northern British Columbia in five motorized vehicles. The Bedaux Expedition ranks as one of the most audacious and unusual events in the province's history. Bannock & Beans tells the story of this extravagant failure from the perspective of one of the cowboys who worked on Bedaux's team. Bob White's reminiscences, recounted in the tradition of the cowboy storyteller, describe the hardships of cutting trails and hauling supplies on horseback, the beauty of the wilderness landscape and many of the unique aspects of the expedition. Bannock and Beans also reveals the complex character of the expedition's leader, Charles Bedaux, a French entrepreneur who made his fortune in the United States. The book includes White's experiences in Bedaux's attempts to develop a ranch in northern BC after the expedition. Editor Jay Sherwood supplements with original Bedaux Expedition correspondence and photographs to show Bedaux's strong attachment to the remote wilderness area of northern BC from 1926 to 1939. Bannock and Beans provides new information and a fresh perspective on this unique event in BC's history. White's memoirs take us back to the campfire stories of people who were part of the vast wilderness that still covered much of the northern part of the province 75 years ago.

In the years leading up to Charles Darwin's 1832-6 voyage on the Beagle, the ship and its captain Robert Fitzroy (1805-65) had participated in an expedition to the desolate southern coast of South America. This three-volume work, published in 1839, describes both voyages. Volumes 1 and 2, compiled by Fitzroy, contain accounts by professional mariners. Volume 3 is the first published version of the young Darwin's now famous journal. It later appeared as a free-standing publication (1840) and in a more popular second edition (1845), both reissued in this series. Darwin's preface refers to the detailed scientific publications resulting from his research: the geological studies of volcanic islands and coral reefs (also available in the Cambridge Library Collection), and the co-authored, multi-volume zoology. Darwin expresses thanks to Fitzroy for his 'most cordial friendship', to the ship's officers for their 'undeviating kindness', and particularly to his Cambridge mentor John Stevens Henslow.

Ever since Captain Cook sailed into the Great Southern Ocean in 1773, mankind has sought to push back the boundaries of Antarctic exploration. The first expeditions tried simply to chart Antarctica's coastline, but then the Sixth International Geographical Congress of 1895 posed a greater challenge: the conquest of the continent itself. Many would die in the attempt. Icy Graves uses the tragic tales not only of famous explorers like Robert Falcon Scott and Aeneas Mackintosh, but also of many lesser-known figures, both British and international, to plot the forward progress of Antarctic exploration. It tells, often in their own words, the compelling stories of the brave men and women who have fallen in what Sir Ernest Shackleton called the 'White Warfare of the South'.

A riveting journey into the bizarre world of the Asian arowana or "dragon fish" the world's most expensive aquarium fish-reveals a surprising history with profound implications for the future of wild animals and human beings alike. The Dragon Behind the Glass tells the story of a fish like none other: a powerful predator dating to the age of the dinosaurs. Treasured as a status symbol believed to bring good luck, the Asian arowana is bred on high-security farms in Southeast Asia and sold by the hundreds of thousands each year. In the United States, however, it's protected by the Endangered Species Act and illegal to bring into the country-though it remains the object of a thriving black market. From the South Bronx to Singapore, journalist Emily Voigt follows the trail of the fish, ultimately embarking on a years-long quest to find the arowana in the wild, venturing deep into some of the last remaining tropical wildernesses on earth. In an age when freshwater fish now comprise one of the most rapidly vanishing groups of animals on the planet, Voigt unearths a paradoxical truth behind the dragon fish's rise to fame-one that calls into question how we protect the world's rarest species. An elegant exploration of the human conquest of nature, The Dragon Behind the Glass revels in the sheer wonder of life's diversity and lays bare our deepest desire-to hold onto what is wild.

Heart of the Hero' gives a compelling insight into the lives of some of the world’s most famous explorers, through the eyes of the women who inspired them to achieve great things. Author Kari Herbert explores the unpredictable, often heartbreaking stories of seven remarkable women who were indispensable companions, intrepid travellers and sometimes even the driving force behind our best-loved polar heroes, such as Scott and Shackleton. Drawing on her own unique experience as the daughter of a pioneering polar explorer, and using extracts from previously unpublished historic journals and letters, Herbert blends deeply personal accounts of longing, betrayal and hope with tales of peril and adventure.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 'The best Everest book I've read since Into Thin Air. Synnott's climbing skills take you places few will ever dare to tread, but it's his writing that will keep you turning pages well past bedtime.' - Mark Adams Veteran climber Mark Synnott never planned on climbing Mount Everest. But a hundred-year mystery lured him into an expedition where a history of passionate adventure, chilling tragedy, and human aspiration unfolded. George Mallory and Sandy Irvine were last seen in 1924, eight hundred feet shy of Everest's summit. A century later, we still don't know whether they achieved their goal of being first to reach the top, decades before Hillary and Norgay in 1953. Irvine carried a camera with him to record their attempt, but it, along with his body, had never been found. Did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit and take a photograph before they fell to their deaths? Mark Synnott made his own ascent up the infamous North Face to try and find Irvine's body and the camera. But during a season described as 'the one that broke Everest', an awful traffic jam of climbers at the summit resulted in tragic deaths. Synnott's quest became something bigger than the original mystery that drew him there - an attempt to understand the madness of the mountain and why it continues to have a magnetic draw on explorers. Exploring how science, business and politics have changed who climbs Everest, The Third Pole is a thrilling portrait of the mountain spanning a century.

In the mid-nineteenth century, thirty-six expeditions set out for the Northwest Passage in search of Sir John Franklin's missing expedition. The array of visual and textual material produced on these voyages was to have a profound impact on the idea of the Arctic in the Victorian imaginary. Eavan O'Dochartaigh closely examines neglected archival sources to show how pictures created in the Arctic fed into a metropolitan view transmitted through engravings, lithographs, and panoramas. Although the metropolitan Arctic revolved around a fulcrum of heroism, terror and the sublime, the visual culture of the ship reveals a more complicated narrative that included cross-dressing, theatricals, dressmaking, and dances with local communities. O'Dochartaigh's investigation into the nature of the on-board visual culture of the nineteenth-century Arctic presents a compelling challenge to the 'man-versus-nature' trope that still reverberates in polar imaginaries today. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

A SPECTATOR and PROSPECT Book of 2022 'Ceaselessly interesting, knowledgeable and evocative' Spectator 'A fresh way to write history' Alan Johnson 'A quirky, amused, erudite homage to France . . . ambitious and original' The Times _____ Original, knowledgeable and endlessly entertaining, France: An Adventure History is an unforgettable journey through France from the first century BC to the present day. Drawn from countless new discoveries and thirty years of exploring France on foot, in the library and across 30,000 miles on the author's beloved bike, it begins with Gaulish and Roman times and ends in the age of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, the Gilets Jaunes and Covid-19. From the plains of Provence to the slums and boulevards of Paris, events and themes of French history may be familiar - Louis XIV, the French Revolution, the French Resistance, the Tour de France - but all are presented in a shining new light. Frequently hilarious, always surprising, France: An Adventure History is a sweeping panorama of France, teeming with characters, stories and coincidences, and offering a thrilling sense of discovery and enlightenment. This vivid, living history of one of the world's most fascinating nations will make even seasoned Francophiles wonder if they really know that terra incognita which is currently referred to as 'France'. _____ 'Packed full of discoveries' The Sunday Times 'A gorgeous tapestry of insights, stories and surprises' Fintan O'Toole 'A rich and vibrant narrative . . . clear-eyed but imaginative storytelling' Financial Times 'Full of life' Prospect

Bob Shepton is an ordained minister in the Church of England in his late 70s, but spends most of his time sailing into the Arctic and making first ascents of inaccessible mountains. No tea parties for this vicar. Opening with the disastrous fire that destroyed his yacht whilst he was ice-bound in Greenland, the book travels back to his childhood growing up on the rubber plantation his father managed in Malaysia, moving back to England after his father was shot by the Japanese during the war, boarding school, the Royal Marines, and the church. We then follow Bob as he sails around the world with a group of schoolboys, is dismasted off the Falklands, trapped in ice, and climbs mountains accessible only from iceberg-strewn water and with only sketchy maps available. Bob Shepton, winner of the 2013 Yachtsman of the Year Award, is an old-school adventurer, and this compelling book is in the spirit of sailing mountaineer HW Tilman, explorer Ranulph Fiennes, climber Chris Bonington and yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston, all of whom have been either friends of Bob's or an inspiration for his own exploits. Derring do in a dog collar! Ranulph Fiennes: 'A wonderful true tale of adventure.' Bear Grylls: 'You are going to enjoy this...as a Commando, Bob is clearly made of the right stuff!'

Winner, Mountain Literature (Non-Fiction) Award, Banff Mountain Book Festival 2018 Nick Bullock is a climber who lives in a small green van, flitting between Llanberis, Wales, and Chamonix in the French Alps. Tides, Nick's second book, is the much-anticipated follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut Echoes. Now retired from the strain of work as a prison officer, Nick is free to climb. A lot. Tides is a treasury of his antics and adventures with some of the world's leading climbers, including Steve House, Kenton Cool, Nico Favresse, Andy Houseman and James McHaffie. Follow Nick and his partners as they push the limits on some of the world's most serious routes: The Bells! The Bells! and The Hollow Man on Gogarth's North Stack Wall; the Slovak Direct on Denali; Guerdon Grooves on Buachaille Etive Mor; and the north faces of Chang Himal and Mount Alberta, among countless others. Nick's life can be equated to the rhythm of the sea. At high tide, he climbs, he loves it, he is good at it; he laughs and jokes, scares himself, falls, gets back up and climbs some more. Then the tide goes out and he finds himself alone, exposed, all questions and no answers. Self-doubt, grieving for friends or family, fearful, sometimes opinionated, occasionally angry - his writing more honest and exposed than in any account of a climb. Only when the tide turns is he able to forget once more. Tides is a gripping memoir that captures the very essence of what it means to dedicate one's life to climbing.

Winner of the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild Award for Excellence: Outdoor Book 2019 Chris Townsend embarks on a 700-mile walk along the spine of Scotland, the line of high ground where fallen rain runs either west to the Atlantic or east to the North Sea. Walking before the Independence Referendum of 2014, and writing after the EU Referendum of 2016, he reflects on: nature and history, conservation and rewilding, land use and literature, and change in a time of limitless potential for both better and worse.

Flowers in a Thorn Tree is the story of wildlife conservation in Northern Kenya. Over three years, Thackston made several trips to Kenya, whereupon he would imbed with ranger units of the Northern Rangelands Trust. They’re known as the Warriors for Peace and Wildlife. He lived off a troop-carrier. He would patrol, eat and sleep with the rangers, photographing them as they chased poachers, murderers, and as they worked within the pastoral communities. In this regard, the book is very much an “On the Road,” book. The aim of the photographer is to show and let the pictures tell, in a nonlinear and organic manner. NRT rangers work both on and off of their respective conservancies (there are 5 ranger groups, the 9-1 through the 9-5 sprinkled throughout northern Kenya.) Amongst the pastoral peoples, they have contacts who tell them about the movements of animal herds and potential poaching rings. They also work as peacekeepers within these communities with the idea that a happy and stable community is less likely to feel the need to poach an endangered animal. The mission to change the hearts and minds of the pastoral people regarding the treatment of endangered animals, is instilled within the ranks of the ranger units. The elephants and rhinos that appear in this book are all rescue animals or live on conservancies. They would probably not be alive without the efforts of men, particularly the rangers who populate my book. The rangers believe in their work. This group of humble men have one of the most important jobs in the world and they are succeeding. That’s good for you and me and our families.

The Last Viking unravels the life of the man who stands head and shoulders above all those who raced to map the last corners of the world. In 1900, the four great geographical mysteries- the Northwest Passage, the Northeast Passage, the South Pole, and the North Pole- remained blank spots on the globe. Within twenty years Roald Amundsen would claim all four prizes. Renowned for his determination and technical skills, both feared and beloved by his men, Amundsen is a legend of the heroic age of exploration, which shortly thereafter would be tamed by technology, commerce, and publicity. Feted in his lifetime as an international celebrity, pursued by women and creditors, he died in the Arctic on a rescue mission for an inept rival explorer.Stephen R. Bown has unearthed archival material to give Amundsen's life the grim immediacy of Apsley Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World , the exciting detail of The Endurance , and the suspense of a Jon Krakauer tale. The Last Viking is both a thrilling literary biography and a cracking good story.

A professional biologist with wide experience of working both in the UK and overseas, Rory Putman takes us with him on working trips to Iceland, East Africa, Nigeria and Indonesia, introducing us to the countries and their people, their natural history, and explaining some of the wildlife issues which have prompted himself and his colleagues to travel there in the first place. The stories cover episodes from more than four decades of working as a jobbing biologist overseas. The understanding required to solve problems and seek solutions to particular issues related to management and conservation of wildlife means that in some way the observer becomes much more intimately engaged, and perhaps gains a different perspective of the country and its culture than might be apparent to a more casual 'outside' onlooker. To some extent, that deeper involvement enables Rory Putman to give the reader more of an inside view and introduction to the countries and their wildlife from a wholly personal perspective. Like many other enthusiastic naturalists, the author enjoyed experiencing new habitats and seeing wonderful and exotic species on his travels and this engaging book will carry the reader along on the journey.

What did great adventurers eat during their expeditions to the far corners of the world? How did they view the role of food in their survival and wellbeing? What about hikers and backpackers today who set out to enjoy nature, pushing their own boundaries of comfort for adventure. How does food impact their experience? And what do they have in common with pilgrims and soldiers? Food is a significant element of our relationship with nature. Whether a historical expedition or a weekend camping trip, a journey made on foot requires sustenance. Without mastering our relationship with food we would have not been to the South Pole or summited Mt. Everest or expanded to the west of America. However, in the reporting of these expeditions so far food has rarely taken a central role. It is possible to take a different stance and look at our time on trails with food as the leading character. Here, Demet Guzey offers a fun and interesting read on the social and cultural history, developments and challenges in food on trails and in the wild. She explores personal accounts, news articles and anecdotes to highlight how food has accompanied us in mountaineering, desert travel, and pilgrimage, in the army or on the street. From tinned foods to foraging in the wild, worm-infested hardtack to palate-dulling army rations, loss of appetite in high altitude to starvation at the trenches, no stone is left unturned in this tour of how we manage food on foot, and how disasters happen when we do not manage it so well. Readers will delight in both the stories of many of the famous explorations and the more current journeys.

"Traversa" is a fascinating account of the hardships and hilarity Fran Sandham experienced during his epic solo journey on foot across Africa, from the Skeleton Coast to the Indian Ocean through Namibia, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania. Inspired by the legendary crossings of the great explorers, Sandham left the daily grind of London to undertake an extraordinary adventure. "Traversa" describes his brushes with danger in the form of lions and snakes, land mines and bandits, his 2-month battle with a syphilitic donkey, malaria and the everyday troubles that arise when walking across Africa. Underpinned with stories of the great explorers themselves - Livingstone, Stanley and Galton among others - "Traversa" is the written proof of Sandham's grit, determination and sheer obsession with the continent of Africa.

From 1850 to 1854, the ambitious Commander Robert McClure captained the HMS Investigator on a voyage in search of the missing Franklin Expedition, which sailed from England into the Arctic in 1845 to map the last uncharted section of the North-West Passage. The Investigator and her consort the Enterprise were to pass through the Bering Strait from the west but a Pacific storm separated them, never to meet again. Obsessed with traversing the passage, McClure pressed on and HMS Investigator spent three years trapped in pack ice in Mercy Bay before the crew abandoned ship on foot. This book chronicles the voyage in detail. McClure and his relationships with his officers are at the heart of the story of the arduous journey, vividly illustrated by the paintings of Lt. Samuel Cresswell.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "Audacious...Life on the Mississippi sparkles." --The Wall Street Journal * "A rich mix of history, reporting, and personal introspection." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch * "Both a travelogue and an engaging history lesson about America's westward expansion." --The Christian Science Monitor The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand "flatboat era" of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of America's first western frontier. Seven years ago, readers around the country fell in love with a singular American voice: Rinker Buck, whose infectious curiosity about history launched him across the West in a covered wagon pulled by mules and propelled his book about the trip, The Oregon Trail, to ten weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, Buck returns to chronicle his latest incredible adventure: building a wooden flatboat from the bygone era of the early 1800s and journeying down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. A modern-day Huck Finn, Buck casts off down the river on the flatboat Patience accompanied by an eccentric crew of daring shipmates. Over the course of his voyage, Buck steers his fragile wooden craft through narrow channels dominated by massive cargo barges, rescues his first mate gone overboard, sails blindly through fog, breaks his ribs not once but twice, and camps every night on sandbars, remote islands, and steep levees. As he charts his own journey, he also delivers a richly satisfying work of history that brings to life a lost era. The role of the flatboat in our country's evolution is far more significant than most Americans realize. Between 1800 and 1840, millions of farmers, merchants, and teenage adventurers embarked from states like Pennsylvania and Virginia on flatboats headed beyond the Appalachians to Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Settler families repurposed the wood from their boats to build their first cabins in the wilderness; cargo boats were broken apart and sold to build the boomtowns along the water route. Joining the river traffic were floating brothels, called "gun boats"; "smithy boats" for blacksmiths; even "whiskey boats" for alcohol. In the present day, America's inland rivers are a superhighway dominated by leviathan barges--carrying $80 billion of cargo annually--all descended from flatboats like the ramshackle Patience. As a historian, Buck resurrects the era's adventurous spirit, but he also challenges familiar myths about American expansion, confronting the bloody truth behind settlers' push for land and wealth. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced more than 125,000 members of the Cherokee, Choctaw, and several other tribes to travel the Mississippi on a brutal journey en route to the barrens of Oklahoma. Simultaneously, almost a million enslaved African Americans were carried in flatboats and marched by foot 1,000 miles over the Appalachians to the cotton and cane fields of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, birthing the term "sold down the river." Buck portrays this watershed era of American expansion as it was really lived. With a rare narrative power that blends stirring adventure with absorbing untold history, Life on the Mississippi is a mus-cular and majestic feat of storytelling from a writer who may be the closest that we have today to Mark Twain.