The Oxford Book of Exploration

A comprehensive anthology selected by the great explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison. The ultimate in travel writing, by legends such as Vasco da Gama, Marco Polo, Sir Francis Drake, Roald Amundsen, and Wilfred Thesiger, these are the words of those who changed the world through their pioneering search for new lands, new peoples, and new experiences.

Selected by Robin Hanbury-Tenison, described by the Sunday Times as the ''greatest explorer of the last twenty years'', this is a comprehensive anthology of the writings of explorers through the ages, now fully revised and updated. The ultimate in travel writing, these are the words of those who changed the world through their pioneering search for new lands, new peoples, and new experiences. Divided into geographical sections, the book takes us to Asia with Vasco da Gama, Francis Younghusband, and Wilfred Thesiger, to the Americas with John Cabot, Sir Francis Drake, and Alexander Von Humboldt, to Africa with Dr David Livingstone and Mary Kingsley, to the Pacific with Ferdinand Magellan and James Cook, and to the Poles with Robert Peary and Wally Herbert. Driven by a desire to discover that transcends all other considerations, the vivid writings of these extraordinary people reveal what makes them go beyond the possible and earn the right to be known as