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The legendary explorers, heroic figures such as Columbus, Marco Polo, Magellan, and Cook, all were lucky and determined enough to discover something which changed our view of the world, revealing previously unknown continents and cultures. Prepared to go beyond what others saw as reasonable limits, they shared a fortitude which carried them through the severest hardships, whether 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 in search of the unknown.
In The Oxford Book of Explorers, Robin Hanbury-Tenison, hailed by the Sunday Times of London as "the greatest explorer of the last twenty years," offers the first comprehensive collection of these stalwart adventurers, spanning the ages to capture the emotions and motives of those who took part in the daunting effort to find new worlds. We go to Africa with Doctor Livingston where he recounts "the mere animal pleasure of travelling in a wild unexplored country." We sled with Robert Peary close to the North Pole, through air "as keen and bitter as frozen steel." And we climb with Sir Edmund Hillary as he and Sherpa Norgay Tenzig reach the summit of the highest place on earth. These perceptive glimpses into the minds of explorers give a flavor of the emotions and motives of the those who took part in many major expeditions, recording moments of despair, of euphoria, of imminent death, and of long-awaited achievement.
The ultimate travel book, The Oxford Book of Exploration captures the words of those who changed the world through their search for new lands, new peoples, and new adventures. Brimming with the drama of world exploration, it is the perfect book for the armchair traveler.