Red Arctic tells the history of Stalinist Russia's massive campaign to explore and develop its Northern territories during the 1930s. McCannon tells the dramatic stories of the polar expeditions - conducted by foot, ship, and plane - which were the pride of Stalinist Russia, to expose the reality behind them: chaotic blunders, bureaucratic competition, and the eventual rise of the GULAG as the dominant force in the North. Dramatic stories of the first polar explorations, the record-breaking flights and rescues by both foot and ice-breaker. First examination of the Stalinist creation of the myth of the arctic in the face of the rise of the GULAG.

How have Pacific Islanders voyaged across the vast ocean around them and navigated their small crafts from one distant place to another for thousands of years? This reference guide describes the literature on indigenous navigation and voyaging in the Pacific. The annotated bibliography covers journal articles and books written in several languages, including English, German, Japanese, French, Spanish, and Dutch, pointing to materials of both recent and early origin. The entries are arranged alphabetically by author under Pacific (General), Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia chapters. Indexes to authors, geographic areas, and to subjects provide the reader with easy access to the entries and to a wealth of interesting research on a complex subject with many perplexing questions.

Discover the truth about ENDURANCE in this superb true story of adventure, shipwreck, storms and survival on the high seas. 'Superb ... the greatest survival story of all time' Sir Chris Bonington 'One of the most remarkable tales of human courage and determination. The story is gripping and the book is a classic' Sir Ranulph Fiennes ENDURANCE is the story of one of the most astonishing feats of exploration and human courage ever recorded. In 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men set sail for the South Atlantic on board a ship called the Endurance. The object of the expedition was to cross the Antarctic overland. In October 1915, still half a continent away from their intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in ice. For five months Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs, were castaways on one of the most savage regions of the world. This utterly gripping book, based on first-hand accounts of crew members and interviews with survivors, describes how the men survived, how they lived together in camps on the ice for 17 months until they reached land, how they were attacked by sea leopards, the diseases which they developed, and the indefatigability of the men and their lasting civility towards one another in the most adverse conditions conceivable.

In 1875, a team of cartographers, geologists, and scientists under the direction of Ferdinand V. Hayden entered the Four Corners area for what they thought would be a calm summer's work completing a previous survey. Their accomplishments would go down in history as one of the great American surveying expeditions of the nineteenth century. By skillfully weaving the surveyors' diary entries, field notes, and correspondence with newspaper accounts, historians Robert S. McPherson and Susan Rhoades Neel bring the Hayden Survey to life. Mapping the Four Corners provides an entertaining, engaging narrative of the team's experiences, contextualized with a thoughtful introduction and conclusion. Accompanied by the great photographer William Henry Jackson, Hayden's team quickly found their trip to be more challenging than expected. The travelers describe wrangling half-wild pack mules, trying to sleep in rain-soaked blankets, and making tea from muddy, alkaline water. Along the way, they encountered diverse peoples, evidence of prehistoric civilizations, and spectacular scenery - Hispanic villages in Colorado and New Mexico; Mesa Verde, Hovenweep, and other Anasazi sites; and the Hopi mesas. Not everyone they met was glad to see them: in southeastern Utah surveyors fought and escaped a band of Utes and Paiutes who recognized that the survey meant dispossession from their homeland. Hayden saw his expedition as a scientific endeavor focused on geology, geographic description, cartographic accuracy, and even ethnography, but the search for economic potential was a significant underlying motive. As this book shows, these pragmatic scientists were on the lookout for gold beneath every rock, grazing lands in every valley, and economic opportunity around each bend in the trail. The Hayden Survey ultimately shaped the American imagination in contradictory ways, solidifying the idea of ""progress"" - and government funding of its pursuit - while also revealing, via Jackson's photographs, a landscape with a beauty hitherto unknown and unimagined.

In "Working My Way through Retirement," author Lola Albion finds that retirement has many surprises and totally unexpected opportunities in store for her. She shares her unique trek in a series of e-mails written to family and friends from locations throughout the world over a period of nearly eight years. Her travels spanned far and wide, with her messages relayed from places as diverse as Doomadgee, an Aboriginal community in remote Australia; Labrador on the Atlantic edge of Canada; Montenegro in the Balkans; Tanna in the Pacific; Qatar in the Middle East; Italy; Jordan; and Cambodia. Albion shares her extraordinary experiences with a great deal of humour, gentleness, and wise insight into the human condition. She also considers themes of change, ageing, the universality of human hopes and dreams, and the wonder of the world and its people throughout.

Format 5 1/4" x 8 1/2" Illus Line drawings and 16 b&w photos ??? Reissue of a classic ??? Vivid account of life on a tall ship ??? Evidence of great experience and expertise ??? Newly added biography of the author

The texts collected here show the variety of ways in which women writers shaped early 19th-century British attitudes to North Africa and the Middle East, and towards Muslim culture more generally.

David Livingstone was a doctor from Scotland, trained at the University of Glasgow and sent to South Africa by the London Missionary Society. He attended to both the spiritual and physical needs of people as he met them, but he also aimed to help people by being more strategic - trying to end slavery and promote trade. These quests caused him to be the first European to cross the African Continent. It should be noted that Livingstone's words are of his time and would be seen as racist by today's standards. He uses the terms and the science that were available to him, which were flawed, but is fascinated by the people that he meets and approaches them as fellow human beings. He writes with delicious humor and captivates the reader. This is book that both fascinates and enthrals.

The deep oceans are the last great frontier remaining on Earth. Humans have conquered the vast wilderness of the terrestrial surface, from the searing deserts and dark forests of the tropics to the icy polar regions. Today, anyone with enough ambition and money can travel upriver into the heart of the Borneo jungle, climb Mount Everest, or spend the night at the South Pole. But the oceans beyond the continental shelves remain forbidding, beyond the reach of science, adventurism, and commerce.

Not long ago, scientists viewed the ocean floor as a vast, featureless plain, an ancient repository of detritus eroded from the surface of an unchanging Earth. Light never reached the seemingly lifeless depths. The ocean basins were only of marginal scholarly interest. This all changed with the Herculean quest to discover what lay on the world's ocean floor -- a quest that inspired the continental drift-plate tectonics revolution and overturned prevailing scientific notions of how the Earth's surface was created, rearranged, and destroyed.

Upheaval from the Abyss spans a 130-year period, beginning with the early, backbreaking efforts to map the depths during the age of sail; continuing with improvements in research methods spurred by maritime disaster and war; and culminating in the publication of the first map of the world's ocean floor in 1977. David M. Lawrence brings this tale to life by weaving through it the personalities of the scientists-explorers who struggled to see the face of the deep, and reveals not only the facts of how the ocean floor was mapped, but also the human dimensions of what the scientists experienced and felt while in the process.

Writer and Antarctic explorer Neider tells of his third trip to the frozen continent, describing the international stations there and the goals they are working toward. Neider also tours the Antarctic landscape, observing the geography and wildlife and evoking it in detail. Devoting scrutiny to the international treaties that protect the continent politically and environmentally, Neider reveals how important those treaties are. Also included in this work are interviews with Antarctic pioneers Sir Charles Wright, Sir Vivian Fuchs, and Laurence Gould.

Wife of self-proclaimed North Pole discoverer Robert Edwin Peary, Josephine Peary was the first woman apart from the Inuit to take part in an Arctic expedition. My Arctic Journal, unavailable for nearly a century, is Peary's memoir of the time she spent, from June of 1891 to August of 1892, accompanying her husband and his exploration party across the northernmost expanses of Greenland. Peary recounts in detail the hardships of life in the frozen North, and describes at length the customs of the Inuit natives, among whom she spent a great deal of time. She also tells of her experiences hunting near the top of the world, and gives her impressions of the other members of the expedition, who included explorers Dr. Frederick Cook and Matthew Henson. Richly illustrated and written with candor and emotion, My Arctic Journal is a unique gem of an exploration memoir.