Books Reviews

Explorers: Tales of Endurance and Exploration (Royal Geographical Society) – Book Review

By Angela Youngman Jan 11, 2011, 15:52 GMT

This is an epic visual guide to the most intrepid explorers in history. Go on an extraordinary adventure with some of the world\'s greatest explorers - from Pytheas to Darwin. Written accounts in the explorers\' own words, together with beautiful illustrations from their journals, tell the stories of their extraordinary adventures while special maps show the explorers\' routes into the unknown. Unique \'visual tours\' along with never-seen-before photography of essential ...more

Stunning - there is no other word to describe this book.  The illustrations and archive material are out of this world.  This is the story of explorers through history; it spans cultures, galaxies and historical periods.

There are the stories of less well known explorers such as Hanno the Navigator, Fa Xian the Monk, Ibn Battuta  as well as the Columbus, Vasco da Gama, David Livingston, James Cook, Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong.  Women too are not forgotten - the contributions of Mary Kingsley, Freya Stark and Gertrude Bell offer a different perspective on the life of an explorer. 

The book brings together first-hand accounts with spectacular visual material.  Each section is linked with chapters setting the scene, seeking to highlight the problems and methods of exploration that were in use.  Exploration was never easy and the hazards that had to be overcome were great. 

This is a book that is perfect reference material, as well as a historical study that can be dipped into and read by all ages.