The Last Viking unravels the life of the man who stands head and shoulders above all those who raced to map the last corners of the world. In 1900, the four great geographical mysteries- the Northwest Passage, the Northeast Passage, the South Pole, and the North Pole- remained blank spots on the globe. Within twenty years Roald Amundsen would claim all four prizes. Renowned for his determination and technical skills, both feared and beloved by his men, Amundsen is a legend of the heroic age of exploration, which shortly thereafter would be tamed by technology, commerce, and publicity. Feted in his lifetime as an international celebrity, pursued by women and creditors, he died in the Arctic on a rescue mission for an inept rival explorer.Stephen R. Bown has unearthed archival material to give Amundsen's life the grim immediacy of Apsley Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World , the exciting detail of The Endurance , and the suspense of a Jon Krakauer tale. The Last Viking is both a thrilling literary biography and a cracking good story.

In the Age of Sail scurvy was responsible for more deaths at sea than piracy, shipwreck and all other illnesses, and its cure ranks among the greatest of military successes - yet its impact on history has mostly been ignored. Stephen Bown searches back to the earliest recorded appearance of scurvy in the sixteenth century, to the eighteenth century when the disease was at its gum-shredding, bone-snapping worst, and to the early nineteenth century, when the preventative was finally put into service. Bown introduces us to James Lind, the navy surgeon and medical detective, whose research on the disease spawned the implementation of the cure; Captain James Cook, who successfully avoided scurvy on his epic voyages; and Gilbert Blane, whose social status and charisma won over the British Navy. Scurvy is a lively recounting of how three determined individuals overcame the constraints of eighteenth-century thinking to solve the greatest medical mystery of their era.

The immense 18th-century scientific journey, variously known as the Second Kamchatka Expedition or the Great Northern Expedition, from St. Petersburg across Siberia to the coast of North America, involved over 3,000 people and cost Peter the Great over one-sixth of his empire's annual revenue. Until now recorded only in academic works, this 10-year venture, led by the legendary Danish captain Vitus Bering and including scientists, artists, mariners, soldiers, and laborers, discovered Alaska, opened the Pacific fur trade, and led to fame, shipwreck, and "one of the most tragic and ghastly trials of suffering in the annals of maritime and arctic history."

A revealing and fresh take on the extraordinary story of Captain Vancouver, one of history's greatest explorers. From 1791 to 1795, George Vancouver sailed the Pacific as captain of a major expedition of discovery and imperial ambition. Under orders to stake Britain's claim to western North America, he valiantly charted the byzantine coastline from California to Alaska. His voyage was one of history's greatest feats of maritime daring, scientific discovery, marine cartography and international diplomacy, involving Spain, Russia, the United States and indigenous Hawaii. But the young captain was harbouring within him the kernels of an illness, not evident when he departed but growing daily like a cancer, that, before killing him, would drive him into uncontrollable rages, leaving him shamed, exhausted, and bedridden. And his triumphs were overshadowed by bitter smear campaigns initiated by enemies he made on board-well-connected gentlemen who were set on destroying his reputation. How could Vancouver have known that his actions on the far side of the world were being secretly reported on, debated and judged by the aristocratic elite? Madness, Betrayal and the Lash is a tale of adventure at sea, the struggle of empires and of one man's battle against illness, the isolation of command and Britain's polarizing class system. In it, Stephen R. Bown offers a long-overdue re-evaluation of one of the greatest explorers of the Age of Discovery. Stephen R. Bown studied history at the University of Alberta. He is the author or co-author of numerous articles and several books, including A Most Damnable Invention, which was shortlisted for the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction and the Canadian Science Writers Association Science in Society Book Award. He lives in the Canadian Rockies.