A Sunday Times History Book of the Year 2019 Shortlisted for The Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award

'No Briton has written better than Winder about Europe' - Sunday Times

In AD 843, the three surviving grandsons of the great Emperor Charlemagne met at Verdun. After years of bitter squabbles over who would inherit the family land, they finally decided to divide the territory and go their separate ways. In a moment of staggering significance, one grandson inherited what became France, another Germany and the third Lotharingia: the chunk that initially divided the other two. The dynamic between these three great zones has dictated much of our subsequent fate.

In this beguiling, hilarious and compelling book we retrace how both from west and from east any number of ambitious characters have tried and failed to grapple with these Lotharingians, who ultimately became Dutch, German, Belgian, French, Luxembourgers and Swiss. Over many centuries, not only has Lotharingia brought forth many of Europe's greatest artists, inventors and thinkers, but it has also reduced many a would-be conqueror to helpless tears of rage and frustration. Joining Germania and Danubia in Simon Winder's endlessly fascinating retelling of European history, Lotharingia is a personal, wonderful and gripping story.

An introduction to the nautical history of the North Atlantic. For centuries the Atlantic hemmed Europe behind its storms and mysterious breadth. This was the ocean sea that extended to nowhere, or to the end of the world. Although there were legends of crossings by Celtic saints and Norse ocean farers, it took the vision of an Italian and the finance of a Spanish queen to shatter the shackles of superstition. Columbus was the catalyst who opened the door to the modern world. "Across the Pond" tells of the changing use of this ocean, from a barrier to a route to riches and a highway for trade. There are episodes of exploration and exploitation, there are fighting ships and fisheries, treasure and timber, and always the danger of the sea. There also slipped the slavers with their cargo of shame. This is an ocean that bred some of the world's hardiest mariners, famous men such as Cabot and Hudson and Vespucci, but also the nameless thousands who manned ships, the hard-used mariners from the Chesapeake, the Solway and Seville. Here was bred the down east Yankee, the Nova Scotian bluenose and the Scouser from Liverpool.

The French-Alsatian geographer Charles Huber (1847–84) achieved fame as one of the 19th century’s great Arabian explorers. On his two heroic journeys between 1880 and 1884, he pioneered the scientific mapping of inland Arabia and made some of the earliest records of ancient North Arabian inscriptions and rock art. His tragic murder in 1884 meant that he published little, and the only connected narrative that he managed to write was of his first journey in 1880–81. This highly significant document of Arabian exploration has not been published since 1885, and is presented here for the first time in English translation. Despite Huber’s great posthumous reputation, almost nothing has been written about him. William Facey’s biographical. introduction fills this void, revealing much that was hitherto unknown about Huber’s complex and risk-taking personality, and about his colourful life as a fervent French patriot coming of age in Strasbourg during a time of Franco-German conflict. New light is shed on the dates and itinerary of Huber’s first Arabian journey, an epic quest of some 5,000 kilometres on camelback requiring immense fortitude. For this he used Ha’il as a base before travelling with the pilgrim caravan to Iraq and thence to Syria. The focus then shifts to his return to Arabia in 1883 with Julius Euting, the eminent German Semitist, and the twists and turns of their unsuccessful collaboration. Having parted company with Euting at the great Nabataean site of Mada’in Salih in the northern Hijaz, Huber went back into central Arabia before making a dangerous journey to Jiddah. He was murdered shortly after, on 29 July 1884, by his guides on the Red Sea coast. Finally, the affair of the Tayma Stele, the celebrated Aramaic inscription now in the Musée du Louvre, comes under the spotlight. In a new analysis of this notorious Franco-German imbroglio, the prevailing idea that Huber first saw it in 1880 is held up to scrutiny, and Euting at last given his due for its discovery in 1884.

In the summer of 1839, Henry Layard-just twenty-two years old-left England for eastern Europe and distant lands of the Ottoman Empire. He had never set foot in these regions before and wasn't fluent in their languages. But he would experience one dramatic adventure after another, narrowly escaping death, combatting murderous thieves, riding with Bakhtiari warriors in Persia, and going on secret missions for the British embassy in Turkey. Layard made some of the most important archaeology discoveries ever, uncovering the ruins of Nineveh in 1845, as well as the lost Assyrian capital of Ashur. It's thanks to his secret efforts that scores of Yezidi refugees were saved from persecution. When he returned to England, his personal account of his finds at Nineveh became a bestseller. He went on to witness the famous Charge of the Light Brigade, investigated the Indian Mutiny, and as Britain's diplomat, he played a key role in saving Istanbul from destruction and looting during a war. Real-life Indiana Jones meets Lawrence of Arabia in Winged Bull, the first biography in half a century to tell the story of Henry Layard and his daring adventures. While you may not know his name, you likely have seen his work. The winged bulls, lions and priceless treasures of art and jewellery that he found make up permanent collections in institutions such as the British Museum, Britain's National Gallery and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Layard may have also been the first "archaeologist with a conscience." While better known figures either stole their discoveries or bribed their way into ruins, Layard sought formal permission from local authorities. His books and letters draw a picture of a man who deeply respected the lands and cultures he explored. Using Layard's own letters as well as archival materials and never-before-published documents, author Jeff Pearce captures the life of a man who was never at rest, whether galloping off with tribal rulers or standing up for the poor and downtrodden as a British MP. Discover the life of Henry Layard in this gripping tale of astonishing discoveries, swashbuckling exploits, and political intrigue.

UPDATED WITH NEW MATERIAL FROM THE AUTHOR In The Curse of Oak Island, longtime Rolling Stone contributing editor and journalist Randall Sullivan explored the curious history of Oak Island and the generations of people who tried and failed to unlock its secrets. Drawing on his exclusive access to Marty and Rick Lagina, stars of the History Channel's television show The Curse of Oak Island, Sullivan delivers an up to the minute chronicle of their ongoing search for the truth. In 1795, a teenager discovered a mysterious circular depression in the ground on Oak Island, in Nova Scotia, Canada, and ignited rumors of buried treasure. Early excavators uncovered a clay-lined shaft containing layers of soil interspersed with wooden platforms, but when they reached a depth of ninety feet, water poured into the shaft and made further digging impossible. Since then the mystery of Oak Island's "Money Pit" has enthralled generations of treasure hunters, including a Boston insurance salesman whose obsession ruined him; young Franklin Delano Roosevelt; and film star Errol Flynn. Perplexing discoveries have ignited explorers' imaginations: a flat stone inscribed in code; a flood tunnel draining from a man-made beach; a torn scrap of parchment; stone markers forming a huge cross. Swaths of the island were bulldozed looking for answers; excavation attempts have claimed two lives. Theories abound as to what's hidden on Oak Island. Could it be pirates' treasure or Marie Antoinette's lost jewels? Or perhaps the Holy Grail or proof of the identity of the true author of Shakespeare's plays? In this rich, fascinating account, Sullivan takes readers along as the Lagina brothers mount the most comprehensive effort yet to crack the mystery, and chronicles the incredible history of the "curse" of Oak Island, where for two centuries dreams of buried treasure have led intrepid treasure hunters to sacrifice everything.

In 1616, an English adventurer, Nathaniel Courthope, stepped ashore on a remote island in the East Indies on a secret mission - to persuade the islanders of Run to grant a monopoly to England over their nutmeg, a fabulously valuable spice in Europe. This infuriated the Dutch, who were determined to control the world's nutmeg supply. For five years Courthope and his band of thirty men were besieged by a force one hundred times greater - and his heroism set in motion the events that led to the founding of the greatest city on earth. A beautifully told adventure story and a fascinating depiction of exploration in the seventeenth century, NATHANIEL'S NUTMEG sheds a remarkable light on history.

In striking counterpoint to the conventional account, Pocahontas is a bold biography that tells the extraordinary story of the beloved Indian maiden from a Native American perspective. Dr. Paula Gunn Allen, the acknowledged founder of Native American literary studies, draws on sources often overlooked by Western historians and offers remarkable new insights into the adventurous life and sacred role of this foremost American heroine. Gunn Allen reveals why so many have revered Pocahontas as the female counterpart to the father of our nation, George Washington.

The Pacific of the early eighteenth century was not a single ocean but a vast and varied waterscape, a place of baffling complexity, with 25,000 islands and seemingly endless continental shorelines. But with the voyages of Captain James Cook, global attention turned to the Pacific, and European and American dreams of scientific exploration, trade, and empire grew dramatically. By the time of the California gold rush, the Pacific's many shores were fully integrated into world markets-and world consciousness.
The Great Ocean draws on hundreds of documented voyages--some painstakingly recorded by participants, some only known by archeological remains or indigenous memory--as a window into the commercial, cultural, and ecological upheavals following Cook's exploits, focusing in particular on the eastern Pacific in the decades between the 1770s and the 1840s. Beginning with the expansion of trade as seen via the travels of William Shaler, captain of the American Brig Lelia Byrd, historian David Igler uncovers a world where voyagers, traders, hunters, and native peoples met one another in episodes often marked by violence and tragedy. Igler describes how indigenous communities struggled against introduced diseases that cut through the heart of their communities; how the ordeal of Russian Timofei Tarakanov typified the common practice of taking hostages and prisoners; how Mary Brewster witnessed first-hand the bloody "great hunt" that decimated otters, seals, and whales; how Adelbert von Chamisso scoured the region, carefully compiling his notes on natural history; and how James Dwight Dana rivaled Charles Darwin in his pursuit of knowledge on a global scale.
These stories--and the historical themes that tie them together--offer a fresh perspective on the oceanic worlds of the eastern Pacific. Ambitious and broadly conceived, The Great Ocean is the first book to weave together American, oceanic, and world history in a path-breaking portrait of the Pacific world.

Bernhard Otto Holtermann emigrated from Hamburg to Australia in 1858 as a destitute young man, where, in 1872, he unearthed the largest lump of gold in the world. Holtermann shared his newfound wealth with his adopted home. As he travelled through the settlements, he had the poverty-stricken life documented in spectacular images, and promoted Australia to the world. More than 150 of these impressive photos have now been published, most for the first time, and are thus immortalised for eternity. Over more than 200 pages, the spectacular story of the German emigrant and his lucky discovery is told, with the images commissioned by him now available for the general public. Holtermann's photos impressively document the drudgery of the gold mines and life in Australia during the 19th century. Several modern-day photos and representations of how contemporary artists interpret his work have been included in this coffee-table volume. Thanks to this book, Bernhard Holtermann's legacy has been given the distinction it deserves for the first time.

This volume is about the mythologies of land exploration, and about space and the colonial enterprise in particular. It is an investigation of the presumptions, aesthetics and politics of Australian explorers texts that looks at the journals of John Oxley, Thomas Mitchell, Charles Sturt and Ludwig Leichhardt, and shows that they are not the simple, unadorned observations the authors would have us believe, but, rather, complex networks of tropes. The text argues that contact with Aborigines and the virgin land are occasions of discursive contest, and that, however much explorers construct themselves as monarchs of all they survey, this monarchy is not absolute. This book intention is to scrutinize and undermine the scientific and literary methodology of exploration.

This volume is about the mythologies of land exploration, and about space and the colonial enterprise in particular. It is an investigation of the presumptions, aesthetics and politics of Australian explorers texts that looks at the journals of John Oxley, Thomas Mitchell, Charles Sturt and Ludwig Leichhardt, and shows that they are not the simple, unadorned observations the authors would have us believe, but, rather, complex networks of tropes. The text argues that contact with Aborigines and the virgin land are occasions of discursive contest, and that, however much explorers construct themselves as monarchs of all they survey, this monarchy is not absolute. This book intention is to scrutinize and undermine the scientific and literary methodology of exploration.

British Royal Navy Captain James Cook's voyages of exploration across and around the Pacific Ocean were a marvel of maritime achievement, and provided the first accurate map of the Pacific. The expeditions answered key scientific, economic, and geographic questions, and inspired some of the most influential images of the Pacific made by Europeans. Now readers can immerse themselves in the adventure through the collections of London's National Maritime Museum, which illuminate every aspect of the voyages: oil paintings of lush landscapes, scientific and navigational instruments, ship plans, globes, charts and maps, rare books and manuscripts, coins and medals, ethnographic material, and personal effects. Each artifact holds a story that sheds light on Captain Cook, the crews he commanded, and the effort's impact on world history. Showcasing one of the richest resources of Cook-related material in the world, this publication invites readers to engage with the extraordinary voyages-manifested in material culture-and their continuing significance today. Published in association with the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London Exhibition Schedule: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (Permanent Gallery, opens fall 2018)

A comprehensive, highly readable reference

This is an authoritative, one-stop resource for essential information on the exploration of North America, from alleged pre-Columbian explorers to polar expeditions in the twentieth century. Completely up-to-date in content and historical approach, the book is divided into seven sections, each covering a major area of exploration. Vivid, narrative entries bring to life early expeditions (e.g., African and Scandinavian voyages, real and apocryphal), voyages of European explorers, Western expeditions, and explorations of the Arctic. From the Atlantic seaboard to the Appalachians to the Mississippi to the northernmost regions, readers will discover the Native nations, geographical features, private and governmental institutions, and settlements that played a role in the history of exploring the continent. Maps, photos, and sidebars with lively first-person accounts from contemporary diaries, reports, and news accounts round out this thorough examination of the numerous adventures taken around the continent.

Michael Golay has published five books on American history, including most recently The Ruined Land. He lives in Exeter, New Hampshire.
John Bowman is the Editor of the Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography and numerous other reference works. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

"Absorbing…artfully narrat[es] a possible course of events in the expedition’s demise, based on the one official note and bits of debris (including evidence of cannibalism) found by searchers sent to look for Franklin in the 1850s. Adventure readers will flock to this fine regaling of the enduring mystery surrounding the best-known disaster in Arctic exploration."--Booklist

"A great Victorian adventure story rediscovered and re-presented for a more enquiring time."--The Scotsman

"A vivid, sometimes harrowing chronicle of miscalculation and overweening Victorian pride in untried technology…a work of great compassion."--The Australian

It has been called the greatest disaster in the history of polar exploration. Led by Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin, two state-of-the-art ships and 128 hand-picked men——the best and the brightest of the British empire——sailed from Greenland on July 12, 1845 in search of the elusive Northwest Passage. Fourteen days later, they were spotted for the last time by two whalers in Baffin Bay. What happened to these ships——and to the 129 men on board——has remained one of the most enduring mysteries in the annals of exploration. Drawing upon original research, Scott Cookman provides an unforgettable account of the ill-fated Franklin expedition, vividly reconstructing the lives of those touched by the voyage and its disaster. But, more importantly, he suggests a human culprit and presents a terrifying new explanation for what triggered the deaths of Franklin and all 128 of his men. This is a remarkable and shocking historical account of true-life suspense and intrigue.

Absorbing.artfully narrat es] a possible course of events in the expedition's demise, based on the one official note and bits of debris (including evidence of cannibalism) found by searchers sent to look for Franklin in the 1850s. Adventure readers will flock to this fine regaling of the enduring mystery surrounding the best-known disaster in Arctic exploration.--Booklist
""A great Victorian adventure story rediscovered and re-presented for a more enquiring time.""--The Scotsman
""A vivid, sometimes harrowing chronicle of miscalculation and overweening Victorian pride in untried technology.a work of great compassion.""--The Australian
It has been called the greatest disaster in the history of polar exploration. Led by Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin, two state-of-the-art ships and 128 hand-picked men----the best and the brightest of the British empire----sailed from Greenland on July 12, 1845 in search of the elusive Northwest Passage. Fourteen days later, they were spotted for the last time by two whalers in Baffin Bay. What happened to these ships----and to the 129 men on board----has remained one of the most enduring mysteries in the annals of exploration. Drawing upon original research, Scott Cookman provides an unforgettable account of the ill-fated Franklin expedition, vividly reconstructing the lives of those touched by the voyage and its disaster. But, more importantly, he suggests a human culprit and presents a terrifying new explanation for what triggered the deaths of Franklin and all 128 of his men. This is a remarkable and shocking historical account of true-life suspense and intrigue.

The Franklin Conspiracy is an absorbing account of the single most enigmatic event in Canadian history. In 1845, two British Royal Navy ships, the Erebus and the Terror, commanded by Sir John Franklin, entered the Canadian Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage. Neither ship returned. A fifteen-year search uncovered evidence of unparalleled disaster, but to this day no one knows exactly how the 129 men of the Franklin Expedition met their deaths.

Although the expedition did not run out of food, there is clear evidence of cannibalism. The ships carried two hundred message cylinders with them, yet failed to leave records. Stranger still, an earlier explorer, Thomas Simpson, was reputedly murdered for the "secret of the Northwest Passage." What was this "secret"?

The Franklin Conspiracy is an exhaustively researched, compellingly reasoned answer to that question. The result is a shocking saga of conspiracy, cover-up, and unbelievable secrets.

Why do explorers put themselves in dangerous situations? And, once the worst possible situation occurs, how do they find the resources to survive? In answering these questions, Benedict Allen weaves a series of tales from his own experience as well as that of other explorers including Columbus, Cortez, Scott, Shakelton, Stanley, Livingstone and their modern counterparts: Joe Simpson and Ranulf Fiennes.

Before Sir Ernest Shackleton's exploration of the Antarctic waters in 1914, Captain Roald Amundsen led a courageous team through ice-chocked waters to become the first expedition to reach the South Pole in 1911. Read the fascinating account of his journey in "The South Pole."

"Roald Amundsen planted the Norwegian flag on the South Pole on December 14, 1911: a full month before Robert Falcon Scott arrived on the same spot. Amundsen's 'The South Pole' is less well-known than his rival's, in part because he is less of a literary stylist, but also, perhaps, because he survived the journey. His book is a riveting first-hand account of a truly professional expedition; Amundsen's heroism is understated, but it is heroism nonetheless."
--"The Times of London," 23 June 2001

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the South Pole was the most coveted prize in the fiercely nationalistic modern age of exploration. In the spring of 1911 two separate expeditions left their respective camps in Antarctica in a desperate bid to achieve the glory of being first to reach the South Pole: a British party, led by Captain R. F. Scott, and a Norwegian one under Captain Roald Amundsen. The South Pole, -- Amundsen's first-hand account of the expedition, -- is a fascinating and highly readable history of the tenacity and perseverance of the age.

"The last of the Vikings," Roald Engebreth Gravning Amundsen was a powerfully built man of over six feet in height, born into a family of merchant sea captains in 1872. In 1903 he navigated the Northwest Passage in a 70-foot fishing boat. Soon afterwards he learned that Ernest Shackleton was setting out on an attempt to reach the South Pole. Shackleton abandoned his quest a mere 97 miles short of the Pole, but Amundsen began preparing his own expedition. Although this was the age of the amateur explorer, Amundsen was a professional: he left little to chance, apprenticed with Inuits, and obsessed over every detail.

On October 18, 1911 Amundsen's party set out from the Bay of Whales, on Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf, for their final drive toward the pole. His British counterpart, Robert Falcon Scott, dependent on Siberian ponies rather than on dogs, began his trip three weeks later. While Scott clung fast to the British rule of "No skis, no dogs," Amundsen understood that both were vital to survival. Aided by exceptionally cooperative weather conditions, Amundsen's men passed the point where Shackleton was forced to turn back on December 7, and at approximately 3pm on December 14, 1911, Roald Amundsen raised the flag of Norway at the South Pole, one month before Scott's party would arrive.

A polar masterpiece of history and adventure, The South Pole is the stunning first-hand account of one of the greatest success stories in the annals of exploration. Most skillfully Amundsen constructs the expedition's character through its personalitiesthe cast of veteran explorers, scientists, and crewproviding insight not only into Amundsen's philosophy of exploration, but into the classical age of polar explorers.

The story of the 1882 Palmer Sinai Expedition, a spying and terrorist mission that ended in the murder of its participants and was one of the great cause celebre of the nineteenth century. Just before sunset on August 8th 1882 HMS Cockatrice, a small paddle wheel gunboat, appeared off the Egyptian shore. A rowing boat was lowered down its side and slowly moved towards the beach. On its arrival, six men and a teenage boy alighted. Three of the group were British, all dressed as Arabs, two were Bedouin tribesmen, one a Jew and one a Syrian. The following morning, this mismatched party set off for the desert, taking with them two boxes of dynamite and GBP3,000 in gold coin. Five of them were never seen again. An historical 'who-done-it', an adventure story, a history of the Anglo-Egyptian War and a biography of those involved in the controversy, /These Chivalrous Brothers/ explores the gulf between the Imperial ideal and reality and provides an insight into the character of the men who built the Empire. Through the biographies, it also throws light on such disparate topics as the early history of spying, spiritualism, female hysteria, biblical archaeology, various African uprisings, the Boer War and the hunt for 'Jack the Ripper'.

On a bright July morning in 1870 the British explorer George Hayward was brutally murdered high in the Hindu Kush. Who was he, what had brought him to this wild spot, and why was he killed? Told in full for the first time, this is the gripping tale of Hayward's journey from a Yorkshire childhood to a place at the forefront of the 'Great Game' between the British Raj and the Russian Empire, and of how, driven by 'an insane desire', he crossed the Western Himalayas, tangled with despotic chieftains and ended up on the wrong side of both the Raj and the mighty Maharaja of Kashmir. It is also the tale of the conspiracies that surrounded his death, while the author's own travels in Hayward's footsteps bring the story up to date, and reveal how the echoes of the Great Game still reverberate across Central Asiain the twenty-first century.

Africa evokes a deep sense of mystery. It is a place that retains what most of the world has lost: space, roots, traditions, awesome beauty, true wilderness, rare animals, and extraordinary people. In this wonderful and haunting collection of stories, Kuki Gallmann writes of her life in Africa, where every day brings challenge and adventure. African Nights is a treasury of memories, in which fascinating people and places are brought to life. The healing powers Africa can have on those who embrace the land as a place of mystery, superstition, danger, and beauty.

From the sharp, comic voice of Haunted Inside Passage, Never Cry Halibut is a collection of humorous and thoughtful short essays about hunting and fishing in Alaska. Accompanied by photographs, each story reflects the author's three-decade relationship with the wildest places left in North America as he interacts with brown bears, wolves, wilderness, commercial fishing, and the nearly forgotten act of harvesting food from the wild. From hilarious tales of his nieces outfishing him to reflective ruminations on the human connection to nature, Bjorn captures the liveliness that comes from living so close to the Southeast Alaska wilds.