Based on his day-by-day journals written on the highest peaks of five of the seven continents of the world, Nick Comande shares his personal observations, triumphs and tragedies while climbing some of the highest and coldest mountain peaks in the world while raising money for charity at the same time. This book follows how amateur mountain climber Nick Comande with no formal training whatsoever, traveled from Africa to Antarctica, fighting extreme temperatures, harsh weather conditions, a plane crash and bureaucratic red tape. Trying not only to reach new personal goals, but also helping others at the same time. Nick Comande climbed and raised funds to help The American Cancer society, The American Diabetes Association and The Muscular Dystrophy Association.

"Lure of the Trade Winds: Two Women Sailing the Pacific Ocean" transports readers to a place where few have gone before: aboard a thirty-four-foot boat, cruising the Pacific Ocean. Join author Jeannine Talley, as she and her sailing partner, Joy Smith, embark on the journey of a lifetime.

Each day is a new adventure aboard the Banshee. Talley and her partner are stranded on a reef in Vanuatu, contract malaria, rescue a wrecked boat, visit a skull site in the Solomon Islands, and journey to remote islands whose inhabitants still bear the scars of a brutal colonial past. When their electronic navigational equipment is lost in a storm, they must use sextant navigation, depending entirely on sun sights, to make a long passage north from the South Pacifi c to Micronesia.

In "Lure of the Trade Winds," the two women travel to some of the most remote areas of the world and interact with the inhabitants within their social settings. They unravel some of the world's mysteries, plunge into the unknown, and come face to face with some of the darker aspects of legacy of colonialism. The tale of their travels proves once again that the spirit of adventure knows no bounds.

At age eight Marilyn Harlin already knew she wanted to be a scientist. Throughout the peaks and valleys in her life-including widowhood when her husband fell off a mountain in Switzerland, and the challenges of raising two children on her own--she kept her eyes on her goal and eventually joined the faculty at the University of Rhode Island as its only female botany professor. Marilyn's mission in her career and into retirement has been to inspire youth, especially girls, to venture into the sciences. Making Waves is a memoir of a progressive life lived with passion.

From an early age, Brice H. Goldsborough exhibited an unending curiosity about the world around him; he was interested in almost anything mechanical, was inquisitive about weather patterns, and yearned to know more about aerodynamics. This lifelong quest for information led him to found Pioneer Instrument Company in New York in 1919, a firm that eventually became one of the world's largest producers of reliable aviation instruments. In this biography, author Robert Dye, Goldsborough's great-nephew, tells the story of a man who became an expert in meteorology, navigation, and aircraft instrument design and changed the course of aviation history. Based on personal letters, articles, and news clippings, "A Pioneer in Aviation" follows Goldsborough's life as a teen, his time in the navy studying electricity, and his accomplishments, such as establishing China's first offshore radio station and supervising the construction of Haiti's first radio station. Detailing one of aviation's unsung heroes, "A Pioneer in Aviation" shows the man who designed, built, and installed the instrument panel for "The Spirit of St. Louis" and flew with Charles Lindbergh during September 1927 and how he came to be associated with other great names in aviation history such as Glenn Curtiss, Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, and Igor Sikorsky.

Europeans' romanticist imaginings of people from the South Pacific have been around since the Enlightenment and have been significantly informed by the accounts of voyages to Tahiti by people such as Louis Bougainville. This book shows that the overtly promiscuous behavior that the French perceived as hospitality on the part of the Tahitians in 1768 was actually a defensive ploy, and that our contemporary image of sex and sexuality in Pacific Island societies is influenced by a fantasy based on this French misperception. This volume takes a very detailed look at traditional Tahitian culture and society and provides a realistic description of what happened on Tahiti when Europeans encountered the people who lived there. Bolyanatz provides a very readable history of South Pacific exploration and Enlightenment thinking. Anyone interested in the development of Enlightenment thought and the way it has developed since the 18th century will enjoy this book.

During the time he spent in the Portuguese islands of Porto Santo and Madeira, Cristopher Columbus, a navigator from Genoa, was in charge of a dying sailor, from Castile whose caravel had been carried by the current from the Gulf of Guinea to a remote sea, possibly the Caribean.

On his deathbed, this man had told

Columbus the secret of some lands where Siberians had arrived during the Pleistocene and some documents about some possible previous trips. This sailor assured that such lands he had achieved carried by the currents were the same ones he was referring to.

When Columbus arrived in Spain, he tried to convince the Crown of Castile about his projects, which were precisely the same ones that Isaiah had prophesied as destined for getting the limits of the horizons. During his description, Columbus looked so sure that both the Queen Isabel and the King Fernando wondered whether he was trying to conceal a proved reality, a mistery he took to his grave.

When Columbus asked them for a subsidy, Fernando el Catolico commented him that coffers were empty at that point as they had just subjugated the whole Al-Andalus after the seizure of Granada and therefore the defeat of the most unlucky Nasrid king, Boabdil, known as "the little man."

Due to the Spanish explorers of the 15th century, Spain became the biggest commercial power amongst the European countries. They built up settlements which would last until three centuries later in a colonizing expansive process; until the loss of Spanish power on such territories from the decade of 1810s on, when the Independence began. Since the late 18th century, until the early 19th Century, the West witnessed a series of chain revolutions which affected Western Europe and Spanish America at the same time.

The invasion of Napoleon, Francisco de Miranda, Simon Bolivar, Masonic lodges, together with envies, betrayals or lovers make this book to be a thrilling adventure based on historic real.

David Livingstone (1813-1873) was one of the supreme representatives of the British Empire. Yet his career suffered many set-backs during his own life-time, and since his death his reputation has swung between extremes of adulation and dismissal. Were his epic journeys through Africa purely to save souls and counter the slave trade? Or were they the first steps towards bringing the peoples of Central Africa under the control of Europeans who would destroy their values and exploit them economically? Beyond these questions, there lies the puzzle of Livingstone's own character and its contradictions.
Livingstone's career was certainly an extraordinary one. Born in poverty in Blantyre, Scotland, he educated himself by heroic endeavor, later proving him-self to be a remarkable linguist and scientist. His missionary journeys brought him into contact with a wide range of African peoples, for whom he showed remarkable sympathy. "David Livingstone: Mission and Empire is a scholarly and readable account of Livingstone's life and of his achievements.

For more than a hundred years after Europeans had begun populating the Atlantic shores of North America, the Pacific coast of that continent remained a blank on their maps and in their minds. When Russians from Siberia first sighted the mountains of Alaska in 1741, they called it the Great Land. In fact they were glimpsing part of a 4,000-mile stretch of virgin coastline, reaching from Western Alaska to Oregon to Southern California. As far as Spanish Mexico, all was uncharted and unknown. Its water, its salmon, its sea otters, its sunshine, its trees and its harbours remained the preserve of Native Americans, and were entirely free of international commerce.But time was not standing still. In the second half of the eighteenth century, Europeans were aggressively taking their way of life to every corner of the globe. Northwest America could not remain exempt from this process. Who would be the first to settle the coast that was destined to become the cultural and economic powerhouse of the world? The answer to this question was not obvious. This book is the story of how Western America very nearly came to be a possession of the Empire of Russia." A fascinating and near-forgotten history brought vividly to life."Colin Thubron"What a terrific book - it's incredibly well researched and written and tells a story about which I, for one, knew nothing! I was amazed by the cast of characters that Jeremy uncovered - battling away in those terrible conditions. It makes our lives seem very tame. What a triumph!"Rosie Boycott"The central premise of this wonderful book is, at first sight, scarcely believable: that the world's largest country was on the brink of extending its empire along the entire length of America's Pacific shore, thereby making San Francisco as Russian as St Petersburg and annexing Hawaii as an outpost of Siberia. Yet through meticulous research combined with a natural flair for story-telling, Jeremy Atiyah bestows this astonishing sequence of events with credibility. He weaves a compelling tale of heroism, intrigue and betrayal that begins with Catherine the Great and ends in the twilight of the Russian Empire and the ascendancy of America."Simon Calder"The story of Russia's colony in America is known to very few people in Britain. Not only, however, is it one of history's odder side-paths, packed with strange people and events: it is also a fascinating "might-have-been". Jeremy Atiyah tells this story in an accurate and informative narrative which is also great fun to read".Professor Dominic Lieven, London School of Economics, author of The Russian Empire and its Rivals."What if the Russian Empire had succeeded in colonising North America's Pacific coast? And why did they not succeed? Just how close did they come to doing so - at a time when the Atlantic colonies were struggling to create the United States? Jeremy Atiyah offers intriguing answers to questions that I never knew enough even to ask."Lord Howe of Aberavon"Not many people know that Alaska and the whole north-west coast down to San Francisco almost became Russian. Jeremy Atiyah tells an astonishing story of Russian adventurers, half a world away from St Petersburg, struggling for empire, financed by furs and sea-otter skins. As if a brutal climate and hostile natives were not enough, the Russians had to contend with the growing ambitions of the Spanish, American and British governments. With Europe immersed in the Napoleonic Wars, the area became a giant chess-board of trade, diplomacy, exploration and adventure, played out across the whole North Pacific triangle, with Hawaii a paradise against the cold, damp hell of the northwest coast - at its apex. The Russians came out top. Russia owned Alaska until 'the cold dead hand of St Petersburg' threw away their most distant outpost by selling the whole region to the US in 1867, for a mere $7.2 million. This is surely one of the most astonishing real-estate deals in history. It is a tribute to Atiyah's skill as a historian and story-teller that he balances sources from all nationalities, while bringing these wilderness regions and their cast of extremely odd personalities to vivid life."John Man, writer, author of The Guttenberg Revolution, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection and Kublai Khan."Jeremy Atiyah's The Great Land is a welcome addition to the literature on Russian presence on the Pacific Rim. Based on his judicious use of sources, the result is a highly readable and instructive analysis of Russian attempts to establish colonial footholds in Alaska, California and Hawaii at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries. This book belongs in every library and in the collection of every history buff." Basil Dmytryshyn, Professor Emeritus of History, Portland State University.