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Books > Earth & environment > Geography > Geographical discovery & exploration
'Forget routine; now is the time to embrace the unknown, step out
of your comfort zone and open the gateway to the Art of
Exploration.' 'Britain's best loved adventurer' (The Times) talks
about his secrets of discovery for the first time in this revealing
manual of what it means to be an explorer in the modern age. The
man who has walked the Nile, the Himalayas and the Americas
discusses his lessons from a life on the road, how he managed to
turn a passion into a lifestyle, and what inspired and motivated
him along the way. Wood explains how he and other explorers face up
to life's challenges, often in extraordinary circumstances and
demonstrate resilience in the face of overwhelming odds. He shares
examples of pioneers in many fields, using their work to show how
we can all develop our own explorers mindset and how these lessons
can be applied in daily life. With chapters on curiosity, teamwork,
resilience and positivity this is a book that provides a tool kit -
no matter your age or profession. As Levison says, 'these lessons
can help you to fulfil your potential for living a happy life,
regardless of your circumstances'.
Sir Chris Bonington is a household name as a result of his
distinguished mountaineering career during which he has lead
pioneering expeditions to the summits of some of the most stunning
mountains in the world. The Everest Years shares the story of his
relationship with the highest and most sought-after peak on the
planet, Everest, and his ultimate fulfilment upon finally summiting
in 1985 at age fifty. Bonington chronicles four expeditions to the
Himalaya and Everest, including the 1975 South-West Face expedition
on which he was leader and on which Doug Scott and Dougal Haston
became the first Britons to summit the mountain. Bonington also
recounts expeditions to K2 and The Ogre (Baintha Brakk) in the
Karakoram, and Kongur, in China, describing passionately each
attempt: the logistics, glory, and tragedy, seeking to explain his
perpetual fascination with the highest points on earth, despite
repeatedly enduring the trauma of losing friends, and often placing
huge responsibility upon anxious loved ones left at home. The
Everest Years reveals Bonington's love and appreciation for his
ever-supportive wife Wendy, the loyal Sherpas, the companions
sharing his mountain memories including Doug Scott, Dougal Haston,
Peter Boardman, Joe Tasker and Mo Anthoine, and of course the
glorious peaks of the Himalaya and Karakoram mountain ranges.
Following I Chose to Climb and The Next Horizon, this final
instalment of Bonington's autobiography will take you through a
huge spectrum of brutally honest emotions and majestic landscapes.
A vivid reappraisal of the legendary Captain Cook, from bestselling
biographer Frank McLynn The age of discovery was at its peak in the
eighteenth century, with heroic adventurers charting the furthest
reaches of the globe. Foremost among these explorers was navigator
and cartographer Captain James Cook of the British Royal Navy.
Recent writers have viewed Cook largely through the lens of
colonial exploitation, regarding him as a villain and overlooking
an important aspect of his identity: his nautical skills. In this
authentic, engrossing biography, Frank McLynn reveals Cook's place
in history as a brave and brilliant seaman. He shows how the
Captain's life was one of struggle--with himself, with
institutions, with the environment, with the desire to be
remembered--and also one of great success. In Captain Cook, McLynn
re-creates the voyages that took the famous navigator from his
native England to the outer reaches of the Pacific Ocean.
Ultimately, Cook, who began his career as a deckhand, transcended
his humble beginnings and triumphed through good fortune, courage,
and talent. Although Cook died in a senseless, avoidable conflict
with the people of Hawaii, McLynn illustrates that to the men with
whom he served, Cook was master of the seas and nothing less than a
titan.
Available in English for the first time, The Apache Indians tells
the story of the Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad's sojourn among
the Apaches near the White Mountain Reservation in Arizona and his
epic journey to locate the "lost" group of their brethren in the
Sierra Madres in the 1930s. Ingstad traveled to Canada, where he
lived as a trapper for four years with the Chipewyan Indians. The
Chipewyans told him tales about people from their tribe who
traveled south, never to return. He decided to go south to find the
descendants of his Chipewyan friends and determine if they had
similar stories. In 1936 Ingstad arrived in the White Mountains and
worked as a cowboy with the Apaches. His hunch about the Apaches'
northern origins was confirmed by their stories, but the elders
also told him about another group of Apaches who had fled from the
reservation and were living in the Sierra Madres in Mexico. Ingstad
launched an expedition on horseback to find these "lost" people,
hoping to record more tales of their possible northern origin but
also to document traditions and knowledge that might have been lost
among the Apaches living on the reservation. Through Ingstad's keen
and observant eyes, we catch unforgettable glimpses of the
landscape and inhabitants of the southwestern borderlands as he and
his Apache companions, including one of Geronimo's warriors, embark
on a dangerous quest to find the elusive Sierra Madre Apaches. The
Apache Indians is a powerful echo of a past that has now become a
myth.
During Charles Darwin's 1831-6 voyage on the Beagle, his on-board
library included 'Cook's voyages' (the edition is not specified).
This illustrated 1821 edition, in seven volumes, is representative
of the versions available in the early nineteenth century. Volumes
3 and 4 cover Cook's second voyage (1772-5), a key objective of
which was to look for a continent in the Southern Ocean. The
explorers sailed to 71 degrees south, within the Antarctic Circle,
encountering stormy weather and icebergs, albatrosses and storm
petrels. On this voyage, the ship's naturalists were Johann
Reinhold Forster and his son Georg (1754-94), who is credited here
as co-author. Volume 3 contains accounts of the Antarctic in
December 1772 and December 1773, Tasmania (by Captain Furneaux,
whose ship had become separated from the Resolution for several
weeks), and the inhabitants of Tahiti, Easter Island with its giant
statues, Tonga, and New Zealand.
During Charles Darwin's 1831-6 voyage on the Beagle, his on-board
library included 'Cook's voyages' (the edition is not specified).
This illustrated 1821 edition, in seven volumes, is representative
of the versions available in the early nineteenth century. Volumes
3 and 4 cover Cook's second voyage (1772-5), a key objective of
which was to look for a continent in the Southern Ocean. The
explorers sailed to 71 degrees South, within the Antarctic Circle,
encountering stormy weather and icebergs, albatrosses and storm
petrels. On this voyage, the ship's naturalists were Johann
Reinhold Forster and his son Georg (1754-94), who is credited here
as co-author. Volume 4 describes the flora, fauna and people of the
New Hebrides and New Caledonia, the uninhabited Norfolk Island, and
the voyage home via Cape Horn and Tierra del Fuego. The appendix
contains a vocabulary of the Tahitian language as spoken in the
Society Islands.
During Charles Darwin's 1831-6 voyage on the Beagle, his on-board
library included 'Cook's voyages' (the edition is not specified).
This illustrated 1821 edition, in seven volumes, is representative
of the versions available in the early nineteenth century. Volumes
5-7 cover the third Pacific voyage of James Cook (1728-79), which
began in July 1776 and ended in his death in Hawaii. Its objective
was to search for the Pacific end of the North-West Passage. Volume
6 contains Cook's journal of the voyage from July 1777 to January
1779. From Tahiti, he sailed via Hawaii to Nootka Sound, and
reached the Bering Strait in June 1778. The expedition then
explored the Aleutian Islands and the Alaskan coast, reaching 70
degrees north, but by late August fog and snow meant the mission
had to be abandoned for that year. The ships sailed south to
Kamchatka and then back to Hawaii.
During Charles Darwin's 1831-6 voyage on the Beagle, his on-board
library included 'Cook's voyages' (the edition is not specified).
This illustrated 1821 edition, in seven volumes, is representative
of the versions available in the early nineteenth century. Volumes
1 and 2 cover the first Pacific voyage of James Cook (1728-79), the
object of which was to observe the 1769 transit of Venus from
Tahiti. The text replicates the version published in 1773 by John
Hawkesworth (1715-73) as part of a collection of 'Voyages ... in
the Southern Hemisphere', which interwove Cook's account with
botanical and ethnographical notes by the ship's naturalist, Sir
Joseph Banks (1743-1820). The journals were only published
separately much later: Cook's in 1893 (ed. Wharton) and Banks' in
1896 (ed. Hooker); both are also available. Volume 2 focuses on New
Zealand, Australia, and the explorers' return via Indonesia.
During Charles Darwin's 1831-6 voyage on the Beagle, his on-board
library included 'Cook's voyages' (the edition is not specified).
This illustrated 1821 edition, in seven volumes, is representative
of the versions available in the early nineteenth century. Volumes
5-7 cover the third Pacific voyage of James Cook (1728-79), which
began in July 1776 and ended in his death in Hawaii. Volume 5
begins with the orders outlining the main objective of the third
voyage, which was to search for the Pacific end of the North-West
Passage for two summers. They emphasise the importance of good
relations with other colonial powers, notably Spain, and of
periodic recuperation in harbour. This volume contains Cook's
journal of the voyage up to July 1777, via the Cape, Tasmania, and
New Zealand to Tahiti and Tonga, and includes detailed descriptions
of Pacific Islander customs together with several word-lists.
This important collection, published in two volumes in 1770-1 and
reissued here in one, contains accounts of notable Iberian and
Dutch voyages in the southern hemisphere, translated and edited by
Alexander Dalrymple (1737-1808). Hydrographer to the Admiralty from
1795, Dalrymple produced this work as part of his research into the
belief at the time that there existed an undiscovered continent in
the South Pacific. These volumes were intended to demonstrate the
knowledge of the region to date. The first volume covers
sixteenth-century Spanish and Portuguese voyages, beginning with
Ferdinand Magellan and including those of Juan Fernandez, Alvaro de
Mendana y Neira and Pedro Fernandes de Queiros. The second volume
contains the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch voyages of
Jacob Le Mair and Willem Schouten, Abel Tasman and Jacob Roggeveen.
This volume also contains a chronological table of discoveries in
the southern hemisphere since 1501.
In the years leading up to Charles Darwin's famous voyage on the
Beagle, the ship and its captain Robert Fitzroy (1805-65) had
participated in an expedition to the desolate southern coast of
South America. Volume 1 of this three-volume work, published in
1839, describes that 1826-30 expedition, while Volumes 2 and 3
cover the second voyage. Compiled by Robert Fitzroy (1805-65),
captain of the Beagle from 1828, Volume 1 is based on the journals
of Phillip Parker King (1791-56), the expedition's commander, whose
account of his earlier survey of Australia is also reissued. Tasked
with surveying the coast from Montevideo to Cape Horn and north to
Chiloe, and 'collecting and preserving specimens of ... natural
history', the expedition spent its first two field seasons around
Tierra del Fuego, enduring hunger, scurvy and severe weather. It
reached Chiloe in 1829, and returned to England a year later.
In the years leading up to Charles Darwin's famous voyage on the
Beagle, the ship and its captain Robert Fitzroy (1805-65) had
participated in an expedition to the desolate southern coast of
South America. This three-volume work, published in 1839, describes
both voyages. Volume 2 is Fitzroy's account of his voyage with
Darwin. He describes how the Hydrographer of the Admiralty, Captain
Beaufort (founder of The Nautical Magazine, also reissued),
approved the proposal that 'some well educated and scientific
person' should join the expedition: Darwin was chosen. Fitzroy's
descriptions of the locations visited and their natural history
provide a fascinating counterpoint to Darwin's own account of the
voyage, the first published version of which makes up Volume 3.
Fitzroy refers regularly to the geographical and scientific books
that he and Darwin kept in the ship's library. The majority of
these are also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.
A naval officer and man of science, Basil Hall (1788-1844)
commanded the brig HMS Lyra as part of Lord Amherst's 1816 embassy
to the Qing court in China. While Amherst was engaged on his
ultimately abortive venture, the mission's ships visited the west
coast of Korea, and then travelled to the island of Okinawa (then
known as the Great Loo-Choo Island), where they stayed for several
weeks. Little was known about these regions in Britain, and this
illustrated account of the journey offered many insights. As well
as providing nautical data, such as surveys, soundings and
meteorological observations, Hall also comments on geography and
culture. A substantial vocabulary and primer on the Okinawan
language, compiled by fellow naval officer H. J. Clifford, is
included in the appendix. Hall's narratives of his later travels to
both North and South America are also reissued in the Cambridge
Library Collection.
Sir Clements R. Markham (1830-1916) had succumbed to smoke after
accidentally igniting his bedclothes while reading by candlelight;
the task of completing this history therefore fell to his friend
and fellow geographer F. H. H. Guillemard (1852-1933), who
published it in 1921. In the course of his long career, Markham had
sailed to the Arctic in search of Sir John Franklin, jeopardised
his job in the India Office by joining the British attempt to reach
the North Pole in 1875-6, and served as president of the Royal
Geographical Society, sending Robert Falcon Scott on his first
expedition to Antarctica. His extensive knowledge of the prominent
polar explorers and expeditions of his day lends this publication
an especial interest and authority. Enhanced by a number of maps
and illustrations, the book also considers certain scientific and
economic developments, notably the growth of the whaling industry.
Napoleon's military expedition to Egypt in 1798 famously included
various scientists and savants, among whom was the author of this
three-volume work, published in French in 1802 and in English in
1803. Vivant Denon (1747-1825) was a dilettante and diplomat under
the Ancien Regime, but survived the Revolution thanks to the
patronage of the painter David, and met Napoleon through the salon
of Josephine de Beauharnais. He accompanied the army, excavating
and sketching, sometimes even during battles. The publication of
this lively, illustrated account is regarded as the chief stimulus
for the so-called 'Egyptian Revival' style of architecture,
interior design and even costume. Volume 1 describes the voyage to
Egypt via Malta, the storming of Alexandria, exploration of the
Delta, and travel down the Nile to Cairo and the Pyramids. The
combination of archaeological observations, notes on the modern
Egyptians, and descriptions of warfare makes for a fascinating
read.
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