Explorers: The Most Exciting Voyages of Discovery -- From the African Expeditions to the Lunar Landing [Hardcover]

Starred Review.
This photo- and fact-filled book, in which nearly every page is a generously illustrated double gatefold, lands on the table with an undeniable thud and details 58 expeditions from the past 150 years-from Robert Peary and Matthew Henson's trek to the North Pole in 1909 to Edmund Hillary's 1953 climb up Everest (called by Tibetans "the mother goddess of the world") to Neil Armstrong's "one small step" onto the moon in 1969. De Porti, a writer and editor for Charta and art director of Alumina, chose these stories for their "cultural and scientific significance" and combines often-unseen images (readers will find reproductions of pages from travel journals, maps and sketches among the hundreds of archival photos) with explorer biographies and travel narratives. De Porti recounts failed as well as successful expeditions, and it's the former that resonate most, notably the doomed adventure of Robert Falcon Scott, who, after reaching the South Pole, discovered Roald Amundsen had planted the Norwegian flag there barely a month prior. Scott died on the return journey. Though some explorers' intentions were more noble than others (expanding colonial interests played no small role in many expeditions), the creative way these journeys are presented will impress armchair adventurers.
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*Starred Review* De Porti points out in a preface that when Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth in Vostok I in just over 90 minutes in 1961, he was able to travel the same distance as the HMS Challenger in its three-and-a-half-year voyage around the world, which began in 1872. From the middle of the nineteenth century, as the author indicates, there are historical documents, accounts, and reports of expeditions, and photographs, and many of them are extraordinarily evocative images, despite their having been taken with primitive equipment. The story of exploration is a story told in pictures, and this book contains hundreds of rare archival photos, both color and black and white, spread over vertical and horizontal gatefolds. The 53 stories here, De Porti writes, have been selected for their historical and scientific importance and also for their "sheer fascination." Some voyages are well known--those of Charles Lindbergh, Roald Amundsen, Robert Stott, Thor Heyerdahl, and Neil Armstrong. Some explorers are little known--such as Katherine Routledge, who explored the mysterious stone statues and the ancient culture that had erected them on Easter Island; Maria Reiche, who for 40 years studied the ancient archaeological sites of South America; and Vittorio Sella, who photographed the highest peaks, towering cliffs, and glaciers in America, Asia, and Africa. Readers will be fascinated by these journeys. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

This wonderful book introduces some of the most famous explorers in a most readable form. I recommend it highly. (Peter F. Arvedson Science Books and Films 200603)

Photo- and fact-filled book, in which nearly every page is a generously illustrated double gatefold. (Publishers Weekly Annex 20051010)

[Top 10 Literary Travel Books list] The 53 stories told here have been selected for their historical and scientific importance. (Brad Hooper Booklist 20060915)

[Starred review:] Extraordinarily evocative images... hundreds of rare archival photos... Readers will be fascinated by these journeys. (George Cohen Booklist 20051201)

Fascinating stops into explorations... it's a handsome book. (Sarah Bryan Miller St Louis Post-Dispatch 20051218)

Cleverly formatted with gatefolds (which open up to create spreads 20" by 22" and larger)... stunning photographs. (Margaret Atwater Singer Library Journal 20051008)

It's hard to imagine how much of a mystery the world once was -- and it's nice to be reminded. (Michael J. Ybarra Wall Street Journal 20051202)

Vivid photography and extraordinary stories... highlights some of the most fascinating expeditions since the 1840s. (Calgary Herald 200601)

Imaginatively designed book. It is richly illustrated with historic photographs, maps and pages that fold out into poster-sized formats. (USA Today 20051211)

Lush, brilliantly executed and illustrated. (January Magazine 20051210)

Remarkable...55 thick, quarter-folded pages chock-full of vintage photos and maps... The intrepid souls showcased here did it the hard way. (Mike Pearson Rocky Mountain News 20060107)

Almost every page folds out into a four-page double gatefold for better display of maps, timelines and astonishing photos. (Austin American-Statesman )

53 incredible stories... History buffs and armchair adventurers alike will find this book to be an absolutely fascinating read. (Gail Hamilton CM Magazine )

Replete with photographs, maps and brief versions of the derring-do of adventurers. (Robert R. Harris New York Times )

Stunningly different history of the endless quest for the undiscovered... lavish photographic treatment. (Globe and Mail )

What's also interesting are the explorers selected... there are also lesser knowns... captures their adventures with stunning accuracy and detail. (Valerie Hill Kitchener-Waterloo Record )

A superbly illustrated reference of great explorers and their expeditions since 1845.

One the most exciting periods of exploration coincided with the invention of photography. As a result, the most important expeditions over the last 160 years were captured and preserved by incredibly dramatic photographs.

Explorers is a stunning history of such expeditions, presented chronologically since 1845. It features rare archival photographs, maps, prints, and drawings, reproduced on stunning gatefolds that fold out to up to 40 inches across and up to 22 inches high.

Text includes a short biography of each explorer, the extraordinary stories of their expeditions, and passages from their personal journals. The explorers featured include, among many others, a total of 22:

• Richard Frances Burton and John Hanning Speke: sources of the Nile
• Henry Stanley: looking for Livingstone
• Isabella Bird Bishop: China
• Ernest Shackleton: Antarctica
• Roald Amundsen: the Northwest Passage and the South Pole
• Gertrude Bell: Iraq
• Maria Reiche: Nazca, Peru
• Thor Heyerdahl: Kon-Tiki raft across the Pacific
• Edmund Hillary: atop Mount Everest
• Neil Armstrong: first steps on the Moon.

Explorers is the fascinating and uniquely illustrated history of the explorers and how their expeditions influenced the world we live in today.

(20051001)

Andrea de Porti was born in Italy, and has a background in academic science instruction. He has been an editor of the science magazine Coelum and currently collaborates as a writer and editor for Charta magazine.

(20051008)

Preface

When Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth in the Vostok I and then parachuted down into a remote area of the Soviet Union, in just over 90 minutes he was able to travel the same distance as did HMS Challenger in her three-and-a-half year voyage around the globe. An almost unimaginable change had taken place within less than a century. The enormous progress in transportation and communication technology has rendered the experience of early exploration -- the endurance and isolation -- virtually impossible to conceive of today. A tourist at the beginning of the 21st century who disembarks from a flight in some utterly remote area of the planet, armed with only a digital camera and a cell phone, will not find it easy to imagine the conditions faced by a traveler of the early 20th century, who, however well prepared and well equipped, could easily disappear without a trace in a hostile and uncharted wilderness.

By good fortune that pioneering experience is not completely lost: from the middle of the 19th century on, we possess not only historical documents, accounts and reports of expeditions, but also great numbers of photographs, many of them extraordinarily evocative images in their own right, despite their having been taken with relatively primitive equipment. From the ancient sepia prints of a frowning Henry Morton Stanley in "Darkest Africa" that emanate colonial dominance to the surreal lunar landscapes captured by the state-of-the-art Hasselblad cameras of the Apollo project, the story of exploration is a story told in pictures. Some of these have become iconic, such as the minuscule figure of Neil Armstrong -- reflected in the gleaming silver helmet of his fellow astronaut Edwin Aldrin -- set against the moon's desolate landscape. Or the remarkably similar image of Robert Falcon Scott and his men, who, having lost the race to be the first to the South Pole and on the brink of perishing in their endeavor, stand beside the flag planted by the Norwegian expedition that heat them to it, leaving them stupefied. But many other such images, sometimes because they are much less well known, are equally capable of conveying with breathtaking freshness the aura of mystery and adventure of these exotic quests, as tragic or ruthless as they may have been.

The 53 stories collected in this book have been chosen from the rich archives of exploration for their historical and scientific importance, but also for their sheer fascination. The explorers are both men and women from a variety of nationalities and vocations -- soldiers, scientists, sailors and aviators -- and all are heroic, whether in success or in failure, evincing a determination, which at times appears superhuman, as they traverse and map deserts and jungles, mountains and swamps, polar ice caps and ocean depths. They sought fame or fortune. They were servants of science or of states. They pursued a personal obsession or dream.

The past century and a half of exploration has thus produced an extraordinary quantity of documentary material, photographic and otherwise, which it has been a voyage of exploration in itself to seek out and sift through. My own voyage may have been virtual, but it, too, had difficulties to overcome. I owe many thanks to the institutions (archives, foundations and public and private libraries) that hold and guard these precious photographs, and I am conscious that without their cooperation a work like this would never have seen the light of day. My warm thanks also go to Rosanna Alberti, whose picaire research has prepared the feast which the reader is now able to enjoy.

Andrea De Porti

(20051204)