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The Making of Mrs Petrakis: a novel of one family and two countries
by Mary KarrasA story of the choices women have to make to survive, and a portrait of ordinary lives marked by loss and war and grief, split between war-torn Cyprus and north London in the 1970s and 1980s.Cyprus in the run up to the civil war of the 1970s... the threat of it hangs in the atmosphere like a fine mist. A terrible thing, war. Against this backdrop of war and violence, the island's inhabitants make the best they can of their lives, building friendships, falling in love, having children, watching people die, making mistakes.Maria Petrakis, however, flees a brutal marriage on the island where she has always lived for London and a new start. She opens a bakery on Green Lanes in Harringay - the centre of the small Greek Cypriot community whose residents have settled there to escape the war and start again. Here she comes into her own as she heals and atones through the kneading of bread and the selling of shamali cakes and cinnamon pastries to her customers.There are glimpses of the lives of her neighbours, friends and customers as they buy their bread and cakes. There's Mrs Koutsouli, whose heart was broken when her handsome son married a xeni, an English woman with fish-eyes and yellow hair. There's Mrs Pantelis, driven half-mad with the grief of losing her son, Nico, in the war. And there's Mrs Vasili who claims to be related to Nana Mouskouri and grows her hair upwards so she can feel closer to God. Finally, there's Elena, Maria Petrakis' daughter-in-law, who has been suffering with the blackness since having a baby, and whom nobody knows quite how to help.The Making Of Mrs Petrakis is a story about the limited choices women sometimes find themselves confronting. It's a story about repression and mental illness and the devastation it can wreak on lives. But above all, it is a story of motherhood and love and of healing through the humble act of baking.(P) 2021 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
The Making of St. Petersberg (American Chronicles)
by Will MichaelsA wide-ranging history of this city on Florida&’s Gulf Coast, one of America&’s oldest, with numerous photos and maps included.The Making of St. Petersburg captures the character of this bay city through its past, from the Spanish clash with indigenous peoples to the creation of the downtown waterfront parks and grand hotels. Take a journey with local historian, preservationist, and former museum executive Will Michaels as he chronicles St. Petersburg&’s storied history, including the world&’s first airline, the birth of Pinellas County, and the good old American pastime, Major League Baseball. From hurricanes to home run king Babe Ruth, the people and events covered in this work paint a rich portrait of a coastal Florida city and capture St. Petersburg&’s unique sense of place.
The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World
by Cyprian BroodbankAn award-winning history of the Mediterranean from prehistory to the Classical world reissued with an extended new preface by the author. For millennia, the Mediterranean has been one of the global cockpits of human endeavor. World- class interpretations exist of its classical and subsequent history, but there has been remarkably little holistic exploration of how its societies, culture, and economies first came into being, despite the fact that almost all the fundamental developments originated well before 500 BCE. The Making of the Middle Sea offers a full interpretive exploration into the rise of the Mediterranean world from its beginning, before the emergence of our own species, up to the threshold of classical times. Extensively illustrated and ranging across disciplines, subject matter, and chronology, from early humans and the origins of farming and metallurgy to the rise of civilizations—Egyptian, Levantine, Hispanic, Minoan, Mycenaean, Phoenician, Etruscan, early Greek—the book is a masterpiece of archaeological and historical writing. Now featuring a new preface exploring the most recent archaeological research on the Mediterranean world.
The Malay Archipelago
by Alfred Russel WallaceOf all the extraordinary Victorian travelogues, The Malay Archipelago has a fair claim to be the greatest - both as a beautiful, alarming, vivid and gripping account of some eight years' travel across the entire Malay world - from Singapore to the western edges of New Guinea - and as the record of a great mind. As Wallace, often under conditions of terrible hardship and sickness, battles through jungles, lives with headhunters, and collects beetles, butterflies and birds-of-paradise, he makes discoveries about the workings of biology that have shaped our view of the world ever since.
The Malay Archipelago (Periplus Classics Series)
by Alfred Russel WallaceThis is one the first and most important books about 18th century Malaysia and covers a wide array of topics from Malaysian culture and history to nature and wildlife. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Malaysia.<P><P>A century and a half after it was first published, this book remains one of the great classics of natural history and travel--perhaps the greatest. Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) deserves equal billing with Charles Darwin for his independently drawn but parallel conclusions on the theory of evolution. Darwin himself called Wallace "generous and noble" and referred favorably to his work in later editions of The Origin of Species.The Malay Archipelago is an extraordinarily accessible book. There is a wealth of detail about pre-modern life in the Indonesian archipelago which Wallace accumulated on over 60 separate journeys spanning 14,000 miles. He was equally fascinated by the exotic peoples, flora and fauna he encountered in his epic travels. A mark of his achievement lies in the size of the collections he bequeathed to British museums--some 125,000 specimens ranging from large mammals to tiny insects, exotic butterflies and splendid birds of paradise.
The Malay Archipelago Part One: Scientific Travellers 1790-1877 Volume VII
by Alfred Russel WallaceDedicated to Charles Darwin, The Malay Archipelago- the land of the Orang-utan and the Bird of Paradise is a narrative of travel with studies of man and nature. This is part one of two volumes.
The Malay Archipelago Part Two: Scientific Travellers 1790-1877 VIII
by Alfred Russel WallaceDedicated to Charles Darwin, The Malay Archipelago- the land of the Orang-utan and the Bird of Paradise is a narrative of travel with studies of man and nature. This is part two of two volumes.
The Malay Archipelago: A Travel Narrative
by Alfred Russel WallaceWritten by a famed 19th-century scientist who laid the groundwork for much of modern biology, this influential work remains one of the great classics of natural history and travel. Detailing his eight-year exploration of the Malay Archipelago, Wallace offers observations of the native people of the island groupings, the abundant and strange animals and insects, and more.
The Mammoth Book of Antarctic Journeys: 32 eye-witness accounts of adventure in the Antarctic
by Jon E. LewisThe very best writing on the Antarctic, from James Cook's eighteenth-century assertion that 'no man will ever venture further than I have done' to Lynne Cox's description of her epic, icy swim in the twenty-first century - 32 first-hand accounts of men and women challenging one of the Earth's last true wildernesses. Here you will find both legendary tales of heroism and startling contemporary accounts of the impact of global warming on the Earth's sole undeveloped continent, including: 'Dog Days' by Robert Falcon Scott. 'The Loss of the Endurance' by Ernest Shackleton. 'Alone' by Richard E Byrd .'The Killer under the Water' by Gareth Wood. 'Melting Point' by David Helvarg. 'Swimming to Antarctica' by Lynne Cox.
The Mammoth Book of Antarctic Journeys: 32 eye-witness accounts of adventure in the Antarctic (Mammoth Books #366)
by Jon E. LewisThe very best writing on the Antarctic, from James Cook's eighteenth-century assertion that 'no man will ever venture further than I have done' to Lynne Cox's description of her epic, icy swim in the twenty-first century - 32 first-hand accounts of men and women challenging one of the Earth's last true wildernesses. Here you will find both legendary tales of heroism and startling contemporary accounts of the impact of global warming on the Earth's sole undeveloped continent, including: 'Dog Days' by Robert Falcon Scott 'The Loss of the Endurance' by Ernest Shackleton.'Alone' by Richard E Byrd.'The Killer under the Water' by Gareth Wood.'Melting Point' by David Helvarg.'Swimming to Antarctica' by Lynne Cox.
The Mammoth Book of On The Edge (Mammoth Books #383)
by Jon E. LewisNo one sees clearer than an individual whose life is hanging by the finger tips on the edge of an abyss. Probing the furthest reaches of human daring and endurance, here are 28 of the great first-hand accounts of extreme mountaineering, from legendary names. Written by the bestselling author of Meadowland and The Running Hare, Featuring:·Heinrich Harrer - first conqueror of the notorious Eigerwand.·Robert Bates - the classic account of the ill-fated American 1953 expedition to K2.·Maurice Herzog - his unstoppable ascent of Annapurna at the cost of frostbite.·Walter Bonatti - tragedy on the Central Pillar of Freney on Mont Blanc.·George Leigh Mallory - surviving an avalanche on the 1922 Everest expedition.·René Desmaison - his epic story of 14 days stuck on The Grandes Jorasses in winter.·Jon Krakauer - recalling his solo ascent of The Devil's Thumb in Alaska.The price of the summit is often measured in human suffering, yet for those who succeed the rewards can be incalculable. Nerve-wracking and unputdownable.
The Mammoth Book of Polar Journeys (Mammoth Books #385)
by Jon E. LewisExerting a magnetic pull our imaginations, the poles have been the object of many gripping first-hand accounts of exploration - literally, journeys to the ends of the earthA passport to the last wildnernesses of Earth, this is the definitive collection of first-hand accounts of polar exploration - 50 true stories of intrepid travel through the desolate and dangerous regions of both Arctic and Antarctic. Beginning with Sir John Franklin's starvation trek through Alaska in 1821 and ending with Vassilli Gorshkovsky's northern expedition aboard a creaking ice-breaker in 2005, these true stories encompass every kind of triumph and disaster.The inspired but doomed courage of Captain Scott, and the marvellous leadership of Shackleton are well known, but here are many other stories including: The Bear, by Frederick A. Cook, 1908 Meeting with Polar Eskimos by Knud Rasmussen, 1932 By Dog-Sledge to the Top of the World, by Wally Herbert, 1968 Hell on Earth by Reinhold Messner, 1989-90 Solo by Pen Haddow, 2003And many more.
The Mammoth Book of Polar Journeys (Mammoth Books)
by Jon E. LewisExerting a magnetic pull our imaginations, the poles have been the object of many gripping first-hand accounts of exploration - literally, journeys to the ends of the earthA passport to the last wildnernesses of Earth, this is the definitive collection of first-hand accounts of polar exploration - 50 true stories of intrepid travel through the desolate and dangerous regions of both Arctic and Antarctic. Beginning with Sir John Franklin's starvation trek through Alaska in 1821 and ending with Vassilli Gorshkovsky's northern expedition aboard a creaking ice-breaker in 2005, these true stories encompass every kind of triumph and disaster.The inspired but doomed courage of Captain Scott, and the marvellous leadership of Shackleton are well known, but here are many other stories including: The Bear, by Frederick A. Cook, 1908 Meeting with Polar Eskimos by Knud Rasmussen, 1932 By Dog-Sledge to the Top of the World, by Wally Herbert, 1968 Hell on Earth by Reinhold Messner, 1989-90 Solo by Pen Haddow, 2003 And many more.
The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places: Antarctic
by John KeayFarthest South - Ernest Henry ShackletonBorn in Ireland, Shackleton joined the merchant navy before being recruited for Captain Scott's 1901 expedition to Antarctica. He was with Scott on his first attempt to reach the South Pole and, though badly shaken by the experience, realized that success was now feasible. In 1907, with a devoted team but little official support, he launched his own expedition. A scientific programme gave it respectability but Shackleton was essentially an adventurer, beguiled alike by the challenge of the unknown and the reward of celebrity. His goal was the Pole, 90 degrees south, and by Christmas 1908 his four-man team were already at 85 degrees.The Pole at Last - Roald AmundsenAmundsen's 1903-6 voyage through North West Passage had heralded a new era in exploration. The route by then was tolerably well known and its environs explored. His vessel was a diminutive fishing smack, his crew a group of Norwegian friends, and his object simply to be the first to have sailed through. He did it because it had not been done and "because it was there". The same applied to his 1911 conquest of the South Pole. Shackleton had shown the way and Amundsen drew the right conclusions. The Pole was not a scientist's playground nor a mystic's dreamland; it was simply a physical challenge. Instead of officers, gentlemen and scientists, he took men who could ski and dogs that could pull; if need be, the former could eat the latter. The only real anxiety was whether they would forestall Scott.In Extremis - Robert Falcon ScottScott was chosen to lead the 1900-4 British National Antarctic Expedition. Its considerable achievements seemed to vindicate the choice of a naval officer more noted for integrity and courage than any polar experience, and, following Shackleton's near success, in 1910 Scott again sailed south intending to combine a busy scientific programme with a successful bid for the South Pole. On 17 January 1912 he and four others duly reached the Pole, indeed they sighted a real pole and it bore a Norwegian flag; Amundsen had got there 34 days ahead of them. Bitterly disappointed, soon overtaken by scurvy and bad weather, and still dragging sledges laden with geological specimens, they trudged back. The tragedy which then unfolded eclipsed even Amundsen's achievement and won them an immortality beyond the dreams of any explorer.
The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places: Antarctic (Mammoth Books #345)
by John KeayFarthest South - Ernest Henry ShackletonBorn in Ireland, Shackleton joined the merchant navy before being recruited for Captain Scott's 1901 expedition to Antarctica. He was with Scott on his first attempt to reach the South Pole and, though badly shaken by the experience, realized that success was now feasible. In 1907, with a devoted team but little official support, he launched his own expedition. A scientific programme gave it respectability but Shackleton was essentially an adventurer, beguiled alike by the challenge of the unknown and the reward of celebrity. His goal was the Pole, 90 degrees south, and by Christmas 1908 his four-man team were already at 85 degrees.The Pole at Last - Roald AmundsenAmundsen's 1903-6 voyage through North West Passage had heralded a new era in exploration. The route by then was tolerably well known and its environs explored. His vessel was a diminutive fishing smack, his crew a group of Norwegian friends, and his object simply to be the first to have sailed through. He did it because it had not been done and "because it was there". The same applied to his 1911 conquest of the South Pole. Shackleton had shown the way and Amundsen drew the right conclusions. The Pole was not a scientist's playground nor a mystic's dreamland; it was simply a physical challenge. Instead of officers, gentlemen and scientists, he took men who could ski and dogs that could pull; if need be, the former could eat the latter. The only real anxiety was whether they would forestall Scott.In Extremis - Robert Falcon ScottScott was chosen to lead the 1900-4 British National Antarctic Expedition. Its considerable achievements seemed to vindicate the choice of a naval officer more noted for integrity and courage than any polar experience, and, following Shackleton's near success, in 1910 Scott again sailed south intending to combine a busy scientific programme with a successful bid for the South Pole. On 17 January 1912 he and four others duly reached the Pole, indeed they sighted a real pole and it bore a Norwegian flag; Amundsen had got there 34 days ahead of them. Bitterly disappointed, soon overtaken by scurvy and bad weather, and still dragging sledges laden with geological specimens, they trudged back. The tragedy which then unfolded eclipsed even Amundsen's achievement and won them an immortality beyond the dreams of any explorer.
The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places: Arabia
by John KeayEscape from Riyadh - William Gifford PalgraveA scholar and a solider, a Jesuit and a Jew, a French spy and a British ambassador- Palgrave was a man of contradictions, all of them highly compromised when in 1862-3, fortified by Pius IX's blessing and Napoleon III's cash, he attempted the first west- east crossing of the Arabian peninsular. To steely nerves and a genius for disguise he owed his eventual success; but not before both were sorely tested when, as a Syrian doctor, he became the first European to enter Riyadh. The desert capital of the fanatical Wahabis, dangerous for an infidel at the best of times, was then doubly so as the sons of the ageing King Feisal intrigued for power.Desert Days - Charles Montagu DoughtyDuring two years (1875-7) wandering in Central Arabia Doughty broke little new ground; dependant on desert charity, his achievement was simply to have survived. Yet his book, Arabia Deserta, was instantly recognized as a classic. Its eccentric prose proves well suited to that minute observation and experience of Bedouin life which was Doughty's main contribution to exploration. T.E. Lawrence called it "a bible of a kind"; both syntax and subject matter have biblical resonances, as in this description of a day's march, or rahla.
The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places: Arabia (Mammoth Books #346)
by John KeayEscape from Riyadh - William Gifford PalgraveA scholar and a solider, a Jesuit and a Jew, a French spy and a British ambassador- Palgrave was a man of contradictions, all of them highly compromised when in 1862-3, fortified by Pius IX's blessing and Napoleon III's cash, he attempted the first west- east crossing of the Arabian peninsular. To steely nerves and a genius for disguise he owed his eventual success; but not before both were sorely tested when, as a Syrian doctor, he became the first European to enter Riyadh. The desert capital of the fanatical Wahabis, dangerous for an infidel at the best of times, was then doubly so as the sons of the ageing King Feisal intrigued for power.Desert Days - Charles Montagu DoughtyDuring two years (1875-7) wandering in Central Arabia Doughty broke little new ground; dependant on desert charity, his achievement was simply to have survived. Yet his book, Arabia Deserta, was instantly recognized as a classic. Its eccentric prose proves well suited to that minute observation and experience of Bedouin life which was Doughty's main contribution to exploration. T.E. Lawrence called it "a bible of a kind"; both syntax and subject matter have biblical resonances, as in this description of a day's march, or rahla.
The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places: Arctic
by John KeayFour Years in the Ice - John RossDisgraced and dishonored for his report of an imaginary mountain range blocking the most likely access to the North West Passage, in 1829 Ross returned to Canada's frozen archipelago to vindicate his reputation. He rounded the north of Baffin Island and entered what he named the Gulf of Boothia. Here the Victory, his eccentric paddle-steamer, became frozen to the ice. Through three tantalizingly brief summers the expedition tried to find a way out and through four long winters then endured the worst of Arctic conditions in a makeshift camp. In July 1832, with the ship long since abandoned, Ross made what must be their last bid to reach open water.Living off Lichen and Leather - John FranklinIn 1845, looking again for the North West Passage, two well-crewed ships under Franklin's command sailed into the Canadian Arctic and were never seen again. There began the most prolonged search ever mounted for an explorer. For Franklin had been lost before and yet had survived. In 1821, returning from an overland reconnaissance of the Arctic coast north of Great Slave Lake, he and Dr. John Richardson, with two Lieutenants and about a dozen voyageurs (mostly French), had run out of food and then been overtaken by the Arctic weather. Franklin's narrative of what is probably the grisliest journey on record omits unpalatable details, like the cannibalism of one of his men, the murder of Lieut. Hood, and Richardson's summary shooting of the murderer; but it well conveys the debility of men forced to survive on leather and lichen (triple de roche) plus that sense of demoralization and disintegration that heralds the demise of an expedition.Adrift on an Arctic Ice Floe - Fridtjof Nansen Norwegian patriot, natural scientist, and Nobel laureate, Nansen caught the world's imagination when he almost reached the North Pole in 1895. The attempt was made on skis from specially reinforced vessel which, driven into the ice, was carried from Siberia towards Greenland. The idea stemmed from his first expedition, an 1888 crossing of Greenland. Then too he had used skis and then too, unwittingly and nearly disastrously, he had taken to the ice. Arrived off Greenland's inhospitable east coast, he had ordered his five-man party to spare their vessel by crossing the off-shore ice floe in rowing boats. A task which he expected to take a few hours turned into an involuntary voyage down the coast of twelve days.The Pole is Mine - Robert Edwin Peary Born in Pennsylvania and latterly a commander in the US navy, Peary had set his sights on claiming the North Pole from childhood. It was not just an obsession but a religion, his manifest destiny. Regardless of cost, hardship, and other men's sensibilities, he would be Peary of the Pole, and the Pole would be American. Critics might carp over the hundreds of dogs that were sacrificed to his ambition, over the chain of supply depots that would have done credit to a military advance, and over the extravagance of Peary's ambition, but success, in 1909, came only after a catalogue of failures; and even then it would be disputed. Under the circumstances his triumphalism is understandable and, however distasteful, not unknown amongst other Polar travelers.
The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places: Arctic (Mammoth Books #347)
by John KeayFour Years in the Ice - John RossDisgraced and dishonored for his report of an imaginary mountain range blocking the most likely access to the North West Passage, in 1829 Ross returned to Canada's frozen archipelago to vindicate his reputation. He rounded the north of Baffin Island and entered what he named the Gulf of Boothia. Here the Victory, his eccentric paddle-steamer, became frozen to the ice. Through three tantalizingly brief summers the expedition tried to find a way out and through four long winters then endured the worst of Arctic conditions in a makeshift camp. In July 1832, with the ship long since abandoned, Ross made what must be their last bid to reach open water.Living off Lichen and Leather - John FranklinIn 1845, looking again for the North West Passage, two well-crewed ships under Franklin's command sailed into the Canadian Arctic and were never seen again. There began the most prolonged search ever mounted for an explorer. For Franklin had been lost before and yet had survived. In 1821, returning from an overland reconnaissance of the Arctic coast north of Great Slave Lake, he and Dr. John Richardson, with two Lieutenants and about a dozen voyageurs (mostly French), had run out of food and then been overtaken by the Arctic weather. Franklin's narrative of what is probably the grisliest journey on record omits unpalatable details, like the cannibalism of one of his men, the murder of Lieut. Hood, and Richardson's summary shooting of the murderer; but it well conveys the debility of men forced to survive on leather and lichen (triple de roche) plus that sense of demoralization and disintegration that heralds the demise of an expedition.Adrift on an Arctic Ice Floe - Fridtjof Nansen Norwegian patriot, natural scientist, and Nobel laureate, Nansen caught the world's imagination when he almost reached the North Pole in 1895. The attempt was made on skis from specially reinforced vessel which, driven into the ice, was carried from Siberia towards Greenland. The idea stemmed from his first expedition, an 1888 crossing of Greenland. Then too he had used skis and then too, unwittingly and nearly disastrously, he had taken to the ice. Arrived off Greenland's inhospitable east coast, he had ordered his five-man party to spare their vessel by crossing the off-shore ice floe in rowing boats. A task which he expected to take a few hours turned into an involuntary voyage down the coast of twelve days.The Pole is Mine - Robert Edwin Peary Born in Pennsylvania and latterly a commander in the US navy, Peary had set his sights on claiming the North Pole from childhood. It was not just an obsession but a religion, his manifest destiny. Regardless of cost, hardship, and other men's sensibilities, he would be Peary of the Pole, and the Pole would be American. Critics might carp over the hundreds of dogs that were sacrificed to his ambition, over the chain of supply depots that would have done credit to a military advance, and over the extravagance of Peary's ambition, but success, in 1909, came only after a catalogue of failures; and even then it would be disputed. Under the circumstances his triumphalism is understandable and, however distasteful, not unknown amongst other Polar travelers.
The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places: Australia
by John KeayLandfall at Botany Bay - James CookThe son of a Yorkshire farm labourer, Cook won distinction as a naval hydrographer but was still a controversial choice to command a voyage of scientific observation to the Pacific in 1768. Its results, including the first coastal surveys of New Zealand and eastern Australia, led to a second voyage to the south Pacific and a third to the north Pacific, during which he was killed in a fracas with the Hawaiians. It was a tragic end for one whose humble origins disposed him to respect indigenous peoples. "They are far happier than we Europeans", he noted of Australia's aborigines following a brief encounter at Botany Bay (Sydney), the first European landing on the Pacific coast, in 1770.Escape from the Outback - Charles SturtAfter pioneering journeys to the Darling and Murray rivers, in 1844-5 Sturt headed north for the heart of Australia. Since the continent appeared to have few seaward draining rivers it was assumed that, alike Africa, it must boat an inland lake region; a boat was therefore included amongst the expeditions equipment. But Sturt failed to reach the geographical centre of the continent, and the largest stretch of water found was at Coopers Creek, later to figure so prominently in the endeavours of Burke and Wills. Sturt's painful retreat during the hottest summer on record formed a fitting prelude to the Wills saga.Death at Coopers Creek - William John WillsIn early 1861 Robert O'Hara Burke, William Wills and John King reached Australia's northern coast on the Gulf of Carpentaria, thus completing the first transcontinental crossing. Returning the way they had come, after four months of appalling hardship they staggered into Sturt's Coopers Creek where men and supplies had been left to await their return. They were just eight hours too late; the relief party, despairing of their return, had left that very morning. One of exploration's most poignant moments was followed by one of its most protracted tragedies as the expedition tried to extricate itself, failed, faded, and died. Only King survived; three months later he was discovered living with the aborigines; Will's heartbreaking journal was found lying beside his skeleton.To See the Sea - John McDouall StuartModest, dedicated, immensely tough and thoroughly congenial, Stuart was very much an explorer's explorer. With little support or fuss he began probing north from Adelaide in the late 1850's. In 1860 he was the first to reach the centre of the continent, thus completing the work of Sturt. Although Burke and Wills just beat him in the race to cross the continent, Stuart's 1862 route was much longer and more difficult; and he did actually reach the sea. He was also to return alive.
The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places: Australia (Mammoth Books #348)
by John KeayLandfall at Botany Bay - James CookThe son of a Yorkshire farm labourer, Cook won distinction as a naval hydrographer but was still a controversial choice to command a voyage of scientific observation to the Pacific in 1768. Its results, including the first coastal surveys of New Zealand and eastern Australia, led to a second voyage to the south Pacific and a third to the north Pacific, during which he was killed in a fracas with the Hawaiians. It was a tragic end for one whose humble origins disposed him to respect indigenous peoples. "They are far happier than we Europeans", he noted of Australia's aborigines following a brief encounter at Botany Bay (Sydney), the first European landing on the Pacific coast, in 1770.Escape from the Outback - Charles SturtAfter pioneering journeys to the Darling and Murray rivers, in 1844-5 Sturt headed north for the heart of Australia. Since the continent appeared to have few seaward draining rivers it was assumed that, alike Africa, it must boat an inland lake region; a boat was therefore included amongst the expeditions equipment. But Sturt failed to reach the geographical centre of the continent, and the largest stretch of water found was at Coopers Creek, later to figure so prominently in the endeavours of Burke and Wills. Sturt's painful retreat during the hottest summer on record formed a fitting prelude to the Wills saga.Death at Coopers Creek - William John WillsIn early 1861 Robert O'Hara Burke, William Wills and John King reached Australia's northern coast on the Gulf of Carpentaria, thus completing the first transcontinental crossing. Returning the way they had come, after four months of appalling hardship they staggered into Sturt's Coopers Creek where men and supplies had been left to await their return. They were just eight hours too late; the relief party, despairing of their return, had left that very morning. One of exploration's most poignant moments was followed by one of its most protracted tragedies as the expedition tried to extricate itself, failed, faded, and died. Only King survived; three months later he was discovered living with the aborigines; Will's heartbreaking journal was found lying beside his skeleton.To See the Sea - John McDouall StuartModest, dedicated, immensely tough and thoroughly congenial, Stuart was very much an explorer's explorer. With little support or fuss he began probing north from Adelaide in the late 1850's. In 1860 he was the first to reach the centre of the continent, thus completing the work of Sturt. Although Burke and Wills just beat him in the race to cross the continent, Stuart's 1862 route was much longer and more difficult; and he did actually reach the sea. He was also to return alive.
The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places: Central and South Asia
by John KeayAlarms amongst the Uzbeks - Alexander BurnesOf all the "forbidden" cities (Timbuktu, Mecca, Lhasa, Riyadh and so on) none enjoyed a more fearsome reputation that Bukhara in Uzbekistan. The first British Indian expedition, that of William Moorcroft in 1819-26, had never returned. Moorcroft's disappearance, like that of Livingstone or Franklin, posed a challenge in itself and preyed on the minds of his immediate successors. Heavily disguised and in an atmosphere of intense intrigue, Burnes and Dr James Gerard crossed the Afghan Hindu Kush in 1832 and approached the scenes of Moorcroft's discomfiture. They would both return; and "Bukhara Burnes" would become the most renowned explorer of his day.On the Roof of the World - John WoodIn 1937 Alexander Burnes returned to Afghanistan on an official mission. Amongst his subordinates was a ship's lieutenant who, having surveyed the navigational potential of the river Indus, took off on a mid-winter excursion into the unknown Pamirs between China and Turkestan. Improbably, therefore, it was John Wood, a naval officer and the most unassuming of explorers, who became the first to climb into the hospitable mountain heartland of Central Asia and the first to follow to its source the great river Oxus (or Amu Darya.)Exploring Angkhor - Henri MouhotBorn in France, Mouhot spent most of his career in Russia as a teacher and then in the Channel Islands. A philologist by training, he also took up natual history and it was with the support of the Royal Zoological Society that in 1858 he set out for South East Asia. From Siam (Thailand) he penetrated Cambodia and Laos, where he died; but not before reaching unknown Angkhor and becoming the first to record and depict the most extensive and magnificent temple complex in the world. His discovery provided the inspiration for a succession of subsequent French expeditions up the Mekong.Over the Karakorams - Francis Edward YounghusbandAs leader of the 1904-5 British military expedition to Lhasa and as promoter of the early assaults on Mount Everest, Younghusband came to epitomize Himalayan endeavour. To the mountain he also owed his spiritual conversion from gung-ho solider to founder of the World Congress of Faiths. His initiation came in 1887 when, as the climax to journey from Peking across the Gobi desert, he determines to reach India over the unexplored Mustagh Pass in the Karakorams - "the most difficult and dangerous achievement in these mountains so far" (S.Hedin).Trials in Tibet - Ekai KawaguchiBy the 1890's the capital of "forbidden" Tibet, unseen by a foreigner since Huc's visit, represented the greatest challenge to exploration. Outright adventurers like the dreadful Henry Savage Landor competed with dedicated explorers like Sven Hedin, all succumbed to to a combination of official vigilance and physical hardship. The exception, and the winner in "the race for Lhasa", was a Buddhist monk from Japan whose expedition consisted of himself and two sheep. Ekai Kawaguchi was supposedly a pilgrim seeking religious texts. His faith was genuine and often tested, as during this 1900 excursion into western Tibet; but he is also thought to have been an agent of the British government in India.
The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places: Central and South Asia (Mammoth Books #349)
by John KeayAlarms amongst the Uzbeks - Alexander BurnesOf all the "forbidden" cities (Timbuktu, Mecca, Lhasa, Riyadh and so on) none enjoyed a more fearsome reputation that Bukhara in Uzbekistan. The first British Indian expedition, that of William Moorcroft in 1819-26, had never returned. Moorcroft's disappearance, like that of Livingstone or Franklin, posed a challenge in itself and preyed on the minds of his immediate successors. Heavily disguised and in an atmosphere of intense intrigue, Burnes and Dr James Gerard crossed the Afghan Hindu Kush in 1832 and approached the scenes of Moorcroft's discomfiture. They would both return; and "Bukhara Burnes" would become the most renowned explorer of his day.On the Roof of the World - John WoodIn 1937 Alexander Burnes returned to Afghanistan on an official mission. Amongst his subordinates was a ship's lieutenant who, having surveyed the navigational potential of the river Indus, took off on a mid-winter excursion into the unknown Pamirs between China and Turkestan. Improbably, therefore, it was John Wood, a naval officer and the most unassuming of explorers, who became the first to climb into the hospitable mountain heartland of Central Asia and the first to follow to its source the great river Oxus (or Amu Darya.)Exploring Angkhor - Henri MouhotBorn in France, Mouhot spent most of his career in Russia as a teacher and then in the Channel Islands. A philologist by training, he also took up natual history and it was with the support of the Royal Zoological Society that in 1858 he set out for South East Asia. From Siam (Thailand) he penetrated Cambodia and Laos, where he died; but not before reaching unknown Angkhor and becoming the first to record and depict the most extensive and magnificent temple complex in the world. His discovery provided the inspiration for a succession of subsequent French expeditions up the Mekong.Over the Karakorams - Francis Edward YounghusbandAs leader of the 1904-5 British military expedition to Lhasa and as promoter of the early assaults on Mount Everest, Younghusband came to epitomize Himalayan endeavour. To the mountain he also owed his spiritual conversion from gung-ho solider to founder of the World Congress of Faiths. His initiation came in 1887 when, as the climax to journey from Peking across the Gobi desert, he determines to reach India over the unexplored Mustagh Pass in the Karakorams - "the most difficult and dangerous achievement in these mountains so far" (S.Hedin).Trials in Tibet - Ekai KawaguchiBy the 1890's the capital of "forbidden" Tibet, unseen by a foreigner since Huc's visit, represented the greatest challenge to exploration. Outright adventurers like the dreadful Henry Savage Landor competed with dedicated explorers like Sven Hedin, all succumbed to to a combination of official vigilance and physical hardship. The exception, and the winner in "the race for Lhasa", was a Buddhist monk from Japan whose expedition consisted of himself and two sheep. Ekai Kawaguchi was supposedly a pilgrim seeking religious texts. His faith was genuine and often tested, as during this 1900 excursion into western Tibet; but he is also thought to have been an agent of the British government in India.