The Oxford History of the British Empire is a major new assessment of the Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. Volume I explores the origins of empire. It shows how and why England, and later Britain, became involved with transoceanic navigation, trade, and settlement during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Leading historians illustrate the interconnections between developments in Europe and overseas and offer specialist studies on every part of the world that was substantially affected by British colonial activity.

Wanderlust is the true story of Ida Pfeiffer (1797-1858), one of the most remarkable female travellers who ever lived - a housewife who decided to follow her dreams despite the strong disapproval of society. At a time when it was considered utterly impossible, Pfeiffer set off alone to travel the world. Along the way, she survived storms at sea, parched deserts, plague, malaria, drowning, earthquakes, robbers, murderers, head hunters and cannibals. She became the first woman to circle the globe alone - and then the first to do so twice. As a result of her incredible exploits and her best-selling travel books, Pfeiffer became one of the most famous women in the world in the nineteenth century. Hers is a tale that culminates in spies, intrigue, a botched revolution and a remarkable career cut tragically short by one voyage too many.

"Lands of Lost Borders carried me up into a state of openness and excitement I haven't felt for years. It's a modern classic."-Pico Iyer A brilliant, fierce writer, and winner of the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize, makes her debut with this enthralling travelogue and memoir of her journey by bicycle along the Silk Road-an illuminating and thought-provoking fusion of The Places in Between, Lab Girl, and Wild that dares us to challenge the limits we place on ourselves and the natural world. As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she craved-to be an explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and metaphysician-had gone extinct. From what she could tell of the world from small-town Ontario, the likes of Marco Polo and Magellan had mapped the whole earth; there was nothing left to be discovered. Looking beyond this planet, she decided to become a scientist and go to Mars. In between studying at Oxford and MIT, Harris set off by bicycle down the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel. Pedaling mile upon mile in some of the remotest places on earth, she realized that an explorer, in any day and age, is the kind of person who refuses to live between the lines. Forget charting maps, naming peaks: what she yearned for was the feeling of soaring completely out of bounds. The farther she traveled, the closer she came to a world as wild as she felt within. Lands of Lost Borders, winner of the 2018 Banff Adventure Travel Award and a 2018 Nautilus Award, is the chronicle of Harris's odyssey and an exploration of the importance of breaking the boundaries we set ourselves; an examination of the stories borders tell, and the restrictions they place on nature and humanity; and a meditation on the existential need to explore-the essential longing to discover what in the universe we are doing here. Like Rebecca Solnit and Pico Iyer, Kate Harris offers a travel account at once exuberant and reflective, wry and rapturous. Lands of Lost Borders explores the nature of limits and the wildness of the self that can never fully be mapped. Weaving adventure and philosophy with the history of science and exploration, Lands of Lost Borders celebrates our connection as humans to the natural world, and ultimately to each other-a belonging that transcends any fences or stories that may divide us.

Far-Fetched Facts is an essay in the history of the literature of travel, real and imaginary, from classical times, via the early accounts of the New World, to the accounts of the South Sea islands that lay beyond. It follows continuities from the Odyssey to the twentieth century and traces the interplay of fact and fiction in a literature with a notorious tendency to deviate from the truth. The late medieval travels of the imaginary Mandeville and the real Marco Polo are explored, and the writings of Columbus as he struggled to reconcile what 'Mandeville' and Polo had written with what he found in the West Indies. The philosophical consequences of the discovery of the New World are followed in the works of Montaigne and Bacon, and the factual travels of Dampier are placed in relation to the fictional travels of Crusoe and Gulliver. The various accounts of the scientific voyages of Cook and Bougainville are examined and their revelation of a Tahiti more mythic than scientific, erotic as well as exotic. All the factual accounts of the mutiny on the Bounty are assessed, and also the fictions that came in its wake. The supposedly factual narrative that is Herman Melville's first novel is read in relation to other travellers' accounts of the South Seas, as are the factual and fictional writings of Loti, Stevenson, Malinowski, Mead, and the Hawaiian Visitors Bureau. Far-Fetched Facts is the first full account of the Western idea of the South Seas as it evolved from the lost paradises of biblical and classical literature to end in the false paradise found by the tourist.

Between 1000 and 1500, a remarkable series of events unfolded as the Vikings discovered North America, the Crusaders took Syria and Palestine, Marco Polo and John of Monte Corvino travelled to China and lured by gold, Jaime Ferrer set off for West Africa. This is a book about medieval Europe's encounter with the wider world. In this detailed and exciting survey, J.R.S. Phillips describes the actual journeys, explores the many myths and legends, and sets the stage for the even greater exploits of Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama and their successors. For this Clarendon Paperback edition, Professor Phillips has added a new introduction and a bibliographical essay, surveying recent work in what is becoming a thriving area of new research.

This two-volume work by Theodor Koch-Gr nberg (1872 1924), director of the Ethnographical Museum in Berlin, tells the story of his major expedition to North-West Brazil and describes the indigenous tribes and the local geography. In contrast to Koch-Gr nberg's many monographs and essays on the same subject, this book is directed at a lay readership. Koch-Gr nberg states his aim of correcting a false impression of the indigenous peoples drawn from 'novels about Indians read during one's youth' and the accounts of his explorations are permeated by a deeply-held respect for the humanity he encounters. Although its primary interest to scholars lies in its anthropological and ethnographical content, the text is full of botanical, geographical and linguistic detail, interspersed with photographs taken by the author. Volume 2 (1910) describes the S o Felippe region and includes an index and appendix with records of climate, flora and fauna.

This two-volume work by Theodor Koch-Grunberg (1872-1924), director of the Ethnographical Museum in Berlin, tells the story of his major expedition to North-West Brazil and describes the indigenous tribes and the local geography. In contrast to Koch-Grunberg's many monographs and essays on the same subject (listed in his Foreword), this book is directed at a lay readership. Koch-Grunberg states his aim of correcting a false impression of the indigenous peoples drawn from 'novels about Indians read during one's youth' and the accounts of his explorations are permeated by a deeply-held respect for the humanity he encounters. Although its primary interest to scholars lies in its anthropological and ethnographical content, the text is full of botanical, geographical and linguistic detail, interspersed with photographs taken by the author. Volume 1, published in 1909, covers the author's travels from Para to Sao Felippe.

In April 1586, Queen Elizabeth I acquired a new and exotic title. A tribe of North American Indians had made her their weroanza - 'big chief'. The news was received with great joy, both by the Queen and her favourite, Sir Walter Ralegh. His first American expedition had brought back a captive, Manteo, whose tattooed face had enthralled Elizabethan London. Now Manteo was returned to his homeland as Lord and Governor. Ralegh's gamble would result in the first English settlement in the New World, but it would also lead to a riddle whose solution lay hidden in the forests of Virginia. A tale of heroism and mystery, BIG CHIEF ELIZABETH is illuminated by first-hand accounts to reveal a remarkable and long-forgotten story.

From about 1600 to 1800 scientists and mariners made increasingly sophisticated attempts to understand the earth's magnetic field and use it in navigation. Europeans had long understood the difference between magnetic and true north, but why did it vary as one traversed the sea? Could this variation be used to pinpoint longitude? Drawing on a wealth of unpublished sources--including manuals, treatises, sailing directions, and logbooks in a half-dozen languages--A. R. T. Jonkers explores these early efforts both for what they reveal about the history of science and navigation and as a unique record of the actual changes in the earth's magnetic field. The result, a masterful combination of science and history, will appeal to a broad audience of specialists as well as general readers.

Enter a world of ancient secrets, old money, new ambitions and the discovery of priceless treasure in this revelatory new biography. Between November 1922 and spring 1923, a door to the ancient Egyptian world was opened. The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun would be the most astonishing archaeological find of the century, revealing not only the boy pharaoh's preserved remains, but thousands of finely crafted objects, from the iconic gold mask and coffins to a dagger made from meteorite, chalices, beautiful furniture and even 3000-year-old food and wine. The world's understanding of Ancient Egyptian civilisation was immeasurably enhanced, and the quantity and richness of the objects in the tomb is still being studied today. Two men were ultimately responsible for the discovery: Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter. It was Lord Carnarvon who held the concession to excavate and whose passion and ability to finance the project allowed the eventual discovery to take place. The Earl and the Pharaoh tells the story of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. Carnarvon's life, money and sudden death became front-page news throughout the world following the discovery of the tomb, fuelling rumours that persist today of 'the curse of the pharaohs'. His beloved home, Highclere Castle, is today best-known as the set of Downton Abbey. Drawing on Highclere Castle's never-before-plumbed archives, bestselling author Fiona, the Countess of Carnarvon, charts the twists of luck and tragedies that shaped Carnarvon's life; his restless and enquiring mind that drove him to travel to escape conventional society life in Edwardian Britain.

The story of Celso Cesare Moreno, one of the most famous of the emigrant Italian elites or "prominenti." Moreno traveled the world lying, scheming, and building an extensive patron/client network to to establish his reputation as a middleman and person of significance. Through his machinations, Moreno became a critical player in the expansion of western trade and imperialism in Asia, the trafficking of migrant workers and children in the Atlantic, and the conflicts of Americans and natives over the fate of Hawaii, and imperial competitions of French, British, Italian and American governments during a critically important era of imperial expansion.

Vasco da Gama (?1469–1524) is well known as one of a generation of discoverers, along with Magellan, Cabral, and Columbus. Yet little is known about his life, or about the context within which he ‘discovered’ the all-sea route to India in 1497–99. This book, based on a mass of published and unpublished sources in Portuguese and other languages, delineates Gama’s career and social context, focusing on the delicate balance between ‘career’ and ‘legend’. The book addresses broad questions of myth-building and nationalism, while never losing sight of Gama himself.

Finalist for the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography
One of the Best Books of the Year:
"The Christian Science Monitor
NPR
The Seattle Times
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Chicago Tribune"
A "New York Times" Notable Book
The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War I was, in the words of T. E. Lawrence, "a sideshow of a sideshow." As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far removed from the corridors of power.
At the center of it all was Lawrence himself. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in Syria; by 1917 he was riding into legend at the head of an Arab army as he fought a rearguard action against his own government and its imperial ambitions. Based on four years of intensive primary document research, "Lawrence in Arabia" definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed.

During the long twentieth century, explorers went in unprecedented numbers to the hottest, coldest, and highest points on the globe. Taking us from the Himalayas to Antarctica and beyond, Higher and Colder presents the first history of extreme physiology, the study of the human body at its physical limits. Each chapter explores a seminal question in the history of science, while also showing how the apparently exotic locations and experiments contributed to broader political and social shifts in twentieth-century scientific thinking. Unlike most books on modern biomedicine, Higher and Colder focuses on fieldwork, expeditions, and exploration, and in doing so provides a welcome alternative to laboratory-dominated accounts of the history of modern life sciences. Although this is a book about two male dominated practices--science and exploration--it recovers the stories of women's contributions, sometimes accidentally, and sometimes deliberately, erased.

New York Times Bestseller (Expeditions) * THE "MASTERFUL CHRONICLE"* OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE LEGENDARY LOST CIVILIZATION OF THE MAYA--AN "ADVENTURE TALE THAT MAKES INDIANA JONES LOOK TAME"* In 1839, rumors of extraordinary yet baffling stone ruins buried within the unmapped jungles of Central America reached two of the world's most intrepid travelers. Seized by the reports, American diplomat John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood-both already celebrated for their adventures in Egypt, the Holy Land, Greece, and Rome-sailed together out of New York Harbor on an expedition into the forbidding rainforests of present-day Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. What they found would upend the West's understanding of human history. In the tradition of Lost City of Z and In the Kingdom of Ice, former San Francisco Chronicle journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist William Carlsen reveals the remarkable story of the discovery of the ancient Maya. Enduring disease, war, and the torments of nature and terrain, Stephens and Catherwood meticulously uncovered and documented the remains of an astonishing civilization that had flourished in the Americas at the same time as classic Greece and Rome-and had been its rival in art, architecture, and power. Their masterful book about the experience, written by Stephens and illustrated by Catherwood, became a sensation, hailed by Edgar Allan Poe as "perhaps the most interesting book of travel ever published" and recognized today as the birth of American archaeology. Most important, Stephens and Catherwood were the first to grasp the significance of the Maya remains, understanding that their antiquity and sophistication overturned the West's assumptions about the development of civilization. By the time of the flowering of classical Greece (400 b.c.), the Maya were already constructing pyramids and temples around central plazas. Within a few hundred years the structures took on a monumental scale that required millions of man-hours of labor, and technical and organizational expertise. Over the next millennium, dozens of city-states evolved, each governed by powerful lords, some with populations larger than any city in Europe at the time, and connected by road-like causeways of crushed stone. The Maya developed a cohesive, unified cosmology, an array of common gods, a creation story, and a shared artistic and architectural vision. They created stucco and stone monuments and bas reliefs, sculpting figures and hieroglyphs with refined artistic skill. At their peak, an estimated ten million people occupied the Maya's heartland on the Yucatan Peninsula, a region where only half a million now live. And yet by the time the Spanish reached the "New World," the Maya had all but disappeared; they would remain a mystery for the next three hundred years. Today, the tables are turned: the Maya are justly famous, if sometimes misunderstood, while Stephens and Catherwood have been nearly forgotten. Based on Carlsen's rigorous research and his own 1,500-mile journey throughout the Yucatan and Central America, Jungle of Stone is equally a thrilling adventure narrative and a revelatory work of history that corrects our understanding of Stephens, Catherwood, and the Maya themselves. *Missourian *Tampa Bay Times

This eye-opening perspective on Stanley's expedition reveals new details about the Victorian explorer and his African crew on the brink of the colonial Scramble for Africa. In 1871, Welsh American journalist Henry M. Stanley traveled to Zanzibar in search of the "missing" Scottish explorer and missionary David Livingstone. A year later, Stanley emerged to announce that he had "found" and met with Livingstone on Lake Tanganyika. His alleged utterance there, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume," was one of the most famous phrases of the nineteenth century, and Stanley's book, How I Found Livingstone, became an international bestseller. In this fascinating volume Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi and James L. Newman transcribe and annotate the entirety of Stanley's documentation, making available for the first time in print a broader narrative of Stanley's journey that includes never-before-seen primary source documents--worker contracts, vernacular plant names, maps, ruminations on life, lines of poetry, bills of lading--all scribbled in his field notebooks. Finding Dr. Livingstone is a crucial resource for those interested in exploration and colonization in the Victorian era, the scientific knowledge of the time, and the peoples and conditions of Tanzania prior to its colonization by Germany.

In Africa Dances Gorer takes the reader on an odyssey across West Africa, in the company of Feral Benga, one of the great black ballet stars of 1930s Paris. It is a devastating critique of colonial rule, which is shown to be destroying African society just as effectively as Christian missionaries undermine indigenous morality. Africa Dances captures the rich physical and psychological detail of African village life from food and architecture to dance and magic. Gorer witnesses men diving for three-quarters of an hour without coming up for breath, witch-doctors conjuring thunderstorms out of clear blue skies, and chameleon fetishists whose skin changes from a dirty white to almost black. This is a place where if you believe, you can.

The North Face of the Eiger was long notorious as the most dangerous climb in the Swiss Alps, one that had claimed the lives of numerous mountaineers. In February 1966, two teams - one German, the other British-American - aimed to climb it by a new direct route. Astonishingly, the two teams knew almost nothing about each other's attempt until both arrived at the foot of the face. The race was on. John Harlin led the four-man British-American team and intended to make an Alpine-style dash for the summit as soon as weather conditions allowed. The Germans, with an eight-man team, planned a relentless Himalayan-style ascent, whatever the weather. The authors were key participants as the dramatic events unfolded. Award-winning writer Peter Gillman, then twenty-three, was reporting for the Telegraph, talking to the climbers by radio and watching their monumental struggles from telescopes at the Kleine Scheidegg hotel. Renowned Scottish climber Dougal Haston was a member of Harlin's team, forging the way up crucial pitches on the storm-battered mountain. Chris Bonington began as official photographer but then played a vital role in the ascent. Eiger Direct, first published in 1966, is a story of risk and resilience as the climbers face storms, frostbite and tragedy in their quest to reach the summit. This edition features a new introduction by Peter Gillman.