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.

Focusing on ten key figures whose careers illuminate the history of the European exploration of North America, this book presents compelling first-person narratives that bring to life the challenges of historical scholarship in the academic classroom. Explorers of the American East: Mapping the World through Primary Documents covers 280 years of North American exploration and colonization efforts, ranging geographically from Florida to the Arctic. Arranged thematically and mononationally, the work focuses on a selection of 10 explorers who represent the changing course of North American exploration during the early modern period. The use of biography to narrate this history draws in readers and makes the work accessible to both a specialized and general audience. The dozens of primary source documents in this guided source reader span travel accounts, autobiographies, letters, official reports, memoirs, patents, and articles of agreement. This wide variety of primary sources serves to bring to life the failures and triumphs of exploring a newly discovered continent in the early modern period. This work focuses on ten explorers, including those who are well known, including John Cabot, John Smith, Jacques Cartier, and Samuel de Champlain, as well as discoverers who have slipped from our modern historical consciousness, such as George Waymouth, John Lawson, and J.F.W. Des Barres. The documents that narrate the voyages of these adventurers are arranged chronologically, vividly telling the story of historical events and presenting different voices to the reader. This variety of viewpoints serves to heighten readers' critical engagement with historical source material. The vast variety of primary source materials present students with the opportunity to read and engage critically with different types of historical documents, thereby growing their analytical skillsets.

Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay is one of Tench's two accounts of early colonial Australian life, the other being The Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson. Before setting sail for Australia, Tench arranged with the London firm Debrett to publish his account of the colony for the eager readership back home. First published in 1789, the text ran to three editions and was promptly translated into French, German, Dutch and Swedish.

A collection of writings on travels undertaken in the Victorian era. The texts collected in these volumes show how 19th century travel literature served the interests of empire by promoting British political and economic values that translated into manufacturing goods.

The Romantic Period saw the advance of the massive British imperial expansion that was to make it dominant for most of the 19th century. There was a corresponding expansion in travel writings, which, highly popular in their own time, seemed to bring exotic realms within the grasp of the reading public and were a source for ethnographic and cultural information about other societies.

In 1498 a young captain named Vasco da Gama sailed from Portugal, circumnavigated Africa, crossed the Indian Ocean, and discovered the sea route to the Indies and, with it, access to the fabled wealth of the East. It was the longest voyage ever undertaken at that time. With blood-red Crusader crosses emblazoned on their sails, the explorers arrived in the heart of the Muslim East in an era when the old hostilities between Christianity and Islam had risen to a new level of intensity. In two voyages that spanned six years, da Gama would fight a running sea battle that would ultimately change the fate of three continents.

The Last Crusade is an epic tale of spies, intrigue, and treachery--of bravado, brinkmanship, and confused, often comical collisions between cultures--offering a surprising new interpretation of the broad sweep of history.

The life of English explorer William Cotton Oswell (1818-93) was marked by adventures and discoveries. At nineteen, he left Essex for Madras, where he worked for the East India Company and became a renowned elephant catcher. Due to poor health, he was sent to South Africa, the 'empire of wild sport', where he specialised in hunting and exploration. He discovered the River Zouga and Lake Ngami during an expedition across the Kalahari desert, and travelled to the Zambezi River with Scottish missionary David Livingstone. Originally published in 1900, this two-volume biography was written by Oswell's eldest son. Since Oswell kept no diary, his life is here reconstructed through the many letters he sent to his family and friends. Volume 2 opens with Oswell's return to England in 1852, and includes an account of his journey to the Crimean front, where he worked in hospitals between 1854 and 1855.

The Romantic Period saw the advance of the massive British imperial expansion that was to make it dominant for most of the 19th century. There was a corresponding expansion in travel writings, which, highly popular in their own time, seemed to bring exotic realms within the grasp of the reading public and were a source for ethnographic and cultural information about other societies.

Portuguese Asia, otherwise known as the Estado da A ndia Oriental, has been far less studied than the Spanish empire in America, its counterpart in the Western hemisphere. It differed from that vast entity in that it was essentially a maritime trading operation held together by strategic territories, such as Goa, Ceylon, or Macau. For more than a century these afforded it control of much of the Indian Ocean. As Professor Winius shows, it was certainly the most peculiar and colourful operation that existed in the history of European expansion, even giving rise to a second, 'shadow' empire created by escapees and renegades from its royal administration. Some of these essays reflect on Portuguese involvement in other areas, notably the Atlantic, and the impact this had in the East, but their focus is on the Portuguese in South and Southeast Asia. They describe its nature and its rise and fall, from the first voyage of Vasco da Gama to its dismemberment by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, and include studies on the jewel trade and on the Renaissance in Goa.

On May 15, 2010, after 210 days at sea and more than 22,000 nautical miles, 16-year-old Jessica Watson sailed her 33-foot boat triumphantly back to land. She had done it. She was the youngest person to sail solo, unassisted, and nonstop around the world.
Jessica spent years preparing for this moment, years focused on achieving her dream. Yet only eight months before, she collided with a 63,000-ton freighter. It seemed to many that she'd failed before she'd even begun, but Jessica brushed herself off, held her head high, and kept going.
Told in Jessica's own words, "True Spirit "is the story of her epic voyage. It tells how a young girl, once afraid of everything, decided to test herself on an extraordinary adventure that included gale-force winds, mountainous waves, hazardous icebergs, and extreme loneliness on a vast sea, with no land in sight and no help close at hand. "True Spirit "is an inspiring story of risk, guts, determination, and achievement that ultimately proves we all have the power to live our dreams--no matter how big or small.

Ranulph Fiennes has entered the public imagination as the intrepid explorer par excellance. Taunted by his wife over the challenge of the never-before attempted circumpolar navigation of the globe, he set off in 1979 on a gruelling 52,000 mile adventure. Together with fellow members of 21 SAS regiment, Fiennes left from Greenwich, travelling over land, passing through both ends of the polar axis. Completed over three years later, it was the first circumpolar navigation of the globe, and justifiably entered Fiennes into the record books. TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH is the record of that journey. It captures the natural beauty of the landscapes they passed through, and the cameraderie that necessarily grows between men who had served in the British forces' elite regiment and were now throwing themselves into danger of a different sort. Time and again, the expedition found themselves in life-threatening situations, weaving through the pack ice of the Arctic Ocean or sharing a single sleeping bag to ward off the -40 degrees celsius Arctic night. The calm and measured approach which made Fiennes such a great expedition leader shines through TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, deftly recreating the last unexplored regions on earth. It is also a book which lays the foundations for what was to come for Fiennes, confirming a need to exist outside the comfortable norms the rest of us inhabit. As the expedition progresses, there is also a mounting sense of tension as attainment of the final goal also spells the end of the adventure. TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH is a compelling account of one journey and Fiennes' drive to push himself to ever further extremes.

The transformation of the medieval European image of the world in the period following the Great Discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries is the subject of this volume. The first studies deal specifically with the emergence of the concept of the terraqueous globe. In the following pieces Dr Randles looks at the advances in Portuguese navigation and cartography that helped sailors overcome the obstacles to the circumnavigation of Africa and the crossing of the Atlantic, and at the impact of the Discoveries on European culture and science. Other articles are concerned with Portuguese naval artillery, and with attempts to classify the indigenous societies of the newly-discovered lands and to map the interior of Africa.

'When an accident occurs, something may emerge of lasting value, for the human spirit may rise to its greatest heights. This happened on Haramosh.' The Last Blue Mountain is the heart-rending true story of the 1957 expedition to Mount Haramosh in the Karakoram range in Pakistan. With the summit beyond reach, four young climbers are about to return to camp. Their brief pause to enjoy the view and take photographs is interrupted by an avalanche which sweeps Bernard Jillott and John Emery hundreds of feet down the mountain into a snow basin. Miraculously, they both survive the fall. Rae Culbert and Tony Streather risk their own lives to rescue their friends, only to become stranded alongside them. The group's efforts to return to safety are increasingly desperate, hampered by injury, exhaustion and the loss of vital climbing gear. Against the odds, Jillott and Emery manage to climb out of the snow basin and head for camp, hoping to reach food, water and assistance in time to save themselves and their companions from an icy grave. But another cruel twist of fate awaits them. An acclaimed mountaineering classic in the same genre as Joe Simpson's Touching the Void, Ralph Barker's The Last Blue Mountain is an epic tale of friendship and fortitude in the face of tragedy.

From prominent outdoorsman and nature writer Mark Kenyon comes an engrossing reflection on the past and future battles over our most revered landscapes-America's public lands. Every American is a public-land owner, inheritor to the largest public-land trust in the world. These vast expanses provide a home to wildlife populations, a vital source of clean air and water, and a haven for recreation. Since its inception, however, America's public land system has been embroiled in controversy-caught in the push and pull between the desire to develop the valuable resources the land holds or conserve them. Alarmed by rising tensions over the use of these lands, hunter, angler, and outdoor enthusiast Mark Kenyon set out to explore the spaces involved in this heated debate, and learn firsthand how they came to be and what their future might hold. Part travelogue and part historical examination, That Wild Country invites readers on an intimate tour of the wondrous wild and public places that are a uniquely profound and endangered part of the American landscape.

An accessible and groundbreaking text that takes a fresh view of contemporary geographical issues by looking at the geographies we have lost. Geography means writing about the world. Alternative ways of writing about the world are introduced and critically evaluated. The book discusses medieval cosmologies, Renaissance magic, feng shui, and the knowledge systems of indigenous people. Alternative Geographies provides an alternative way of looking, describing and understanding the world

The literature of medieval knighthood is shown to have influenced exploration narratives from Marco Polo to Captain John Smith. Explorers from Marco Polo to Captain John Smith viewed their travels and discoveries in the light of attitudes they absorbed from the literature of medieval knighthood. Their own accounts, and contemporary narratives [reinforced by the interest of early printers], reveal this interplay, but historians of exploration on the one hand, and of chivalry on the other, have largely ignored this cultural connection. Jennifer Goodman convincingly develops the ideaof the chivalric romance as an imaginative literature of travel; she traces the publication of medieval chivalric texts alongside exploration narratives throughout the later middle ages and renaissance, and reveals parallel themesand preoccupations. She illustrates this with the histories of a sequence of explorers and their links with chivalry, from Marco Polo to Captain John Smith, and including Gadifer de la Salle and his expedition to the Canary Islands, Prince Henry the Navigator, Cortes, Hakluyt, and Sir Walter Raleigh. JENNIFER GOODMAN teaches at Texas A & M University.