Selected by explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison, this is a comprehensive anthology of the writings of explorers through the ages. These are the words of those who changed the world through their pioneering search for new lands, new peoples, and new experiences.
The anthology does not aim to include every moment of discovery, but to give a flavour of the emotions and motives of those who took part in the major events of exploration. Divided into geographical sections, the book takes the reader to Asia with Vasco da Gama, Edmund Hillary and Wilfrid Thesiger; to the Americas with Cortes, Frobisher and Cabot; to the Pacific with Drake, Banks and Bougainville; to Africa with Burton, Livingstone and Stanley; and to the Poles with Peary, Amundsen and Scott.
All of the explorers in this book share a fortitude and self-awareness which carried them through the severest hardships - cold, heat, illness, hunger or starvation. Their failures are often as illuminating as their successes, revealing what it was that drove them to go beyond the possible, and so merit the name explorer.