The Permanent Book of Exploration: Classic Accounts of the Great Stories of Human Endeavour - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786700343 ISBN 13: 9780786700349

Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub, 1994

Synopsis

Offers excerpts from first-hand accounts of expeditions to some of the world's remotest locations during the great age of exploration, including Burton's search for the source of the Nile and Robert Scott's tragic final expedition in Antarctica

About this title

From Booklist:

The Royal Geographic Society's Keay gathers about 40 selections from journals kept during exotic trips of the nineteenth century. His introduction sensibly explains that a more observational bent prevailed in these explorations and writings, devoted to investigating, than in those from the Age of Discovery, devoted more to claims and conquering. Another distancing twist is that many of these writers had a paying public in mind, so adventures were sought out and embellished rather than encountered in the course of duty, as they had formerly been. That explains all those treks to forbidden cities like Timbuktu, Lhasa, and Riyadh, frequently featuring the dashing hairbreadth escape from a sharp scimitar. But generally the scientific spirit prevails as these explorers find the sources of great rivers (Oxus, Indus, and Nile), cross continents (Australia and North America), and reach the Poles. The classic pathos of Robert Scott, dead after being beaten by Amundsen, rounds out this armchair delectation. Gilbert Taylor

About this edition

• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0786700343
• ISBN 13: 9780786700349
• Binding: Paperback
• Editor: John Keay