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The Obelisk and the Englishman
By Dorothy U. Seyler. 2015
William John Bankes (1786-1855) was a pioneer in the nascent study of the language, history, and civilization of ancient Egypt.…
At the Abydos Temple he discovered the King List -- a wall of cartouches listing Egyptian kings in chronological order -- which was vital to the decoding of Egyptian hieroglyphs. At Philae he uncovered a fallen obelisk, which he arranged to be transported back to England. And in modern-day Jordan he was the first European to make sketches and site plans of the "lost" city of Petra.Bankes's life was rich and full, and his discoveries have proven to be quite valuable and influential. But, living in an era when homosexuality was a capital offense, he was persecuted for being gay and threatened with imprisonment and execution. His decision to travel and pursue his love of art and architecture went against his father's wishes that he follow in his footsteps and become a politician. Despite such obstacles, Bankes's pioneering work on ancient temples and artifacts now enriches the knowledge of modern Egyptologists, and his art collection and decorative talents can be enjoyed by those who visit his home, a National Trust estate -- with the obelisk from Philae still raised on the south lawn.Enhanced by many of Bankes's drawings and paintings, this engaging story is full of vivid detail about the beginnings of Egyptology, Regency England, and a fascinating individual, and it sets the record straight about Bankes's crucial role in setting the stage for the work of later scholars.From the Hardcover edition.Last Man Off
By Matt Lewis. 2014
"A sinister version of The Perfect Storm . . . Thrilling." --Sunday Times (UK) For readers of The Perfect Storm,…
Between a Rock and a Hard Place, and Into the Wild There's nothing that armchair adventure lovers relish more than a gripping true story of disaster and heroism, and Last Man Off delivers all that against a breathtaking backdrop of icebergs and killer whales. On June 6, 1998, twenty-three-year-old Matt Lewis had just started his dream job as a scientific observer aboard a deep-sea fishing boat in the waters off Antarctica. As the crew haul in the line for the day, a storm begins to brew. When the captain vanishes and they are forced to abandon ship, Lewis leads the escape onto three life rafts, where the battle for survival begins.From the Trade Paperback edition.The Captain and "the Cannibal"
By James Fairhead. 2015
Sailing the uncharted waters of the Pacific in 1830, Captain Benjamin Morrell of Connecticut became the first outsider to encounter the…
inhabitants of a small island off New Guinea. The contact quickly turned violent, fatal cannons were fired, and Morrell abducted young Dako, a hostage so shocked by the white complexions of his kidnappers that he believed he had been captured by the dead. This gripping book unveils for the first time the strange odyssey the two men shared in ensuing years. The account is uniquely told, as much from the captive's perspective as from the American's. Upon returning to New York, Morrell exhibited Dako as a "cannibal" in wildly popular shows performed on Broadway and along the east coast. The proceeds helped fund a return voyage to the South Pacific--the captain hoping to establish trade with Dako's assistance, and Dako seizing his only chance to return home to his unmapped island. Supported by rich, newly found archives, this wide-ranging volume traces the voyage to its extraordinary ends and en route decrypts Morrell's ambiguous character, the mythic qualities of Dako's life, and the two men's infusion into American literature--Dako inspired Melville's Queequeg, for example. The encounters confound indigenous peoples and Americans alike as both puzzle over what it is to be truly human and alive.One Mountain Thousand Summits: The Untold Story of Tragedy and True Heroism on K2
By Freddie Wilkinson. 2010
An insider's account of one of the deadliest and most controversial tragedies in mountaineering history-the 2008 K2 disaster. When eleven…
men perished on the slopes of K2 in August 2008, it was one of the deadliest single events in Himalayan climbing and made headlines around the world. Yet non of the surviving western climbers could explain precisely what happened. Their memories were self-admittedly fogged by exhaustion, hypoxia, and hallucinations. The truth of what happened lies with four Sherpa guides who were largely ignored by the mainstream media in the aftermath of the tragedy, who lost two of their own during the incident, and whose heroic efforts saved the lives of at least four climbers. Based on his numerous trips to Nepal and in-depth interviews he conducted with these unacknowledged heroes, the other survivors, and the families of the lost climbers, alpinist and veteran climbing writer Freddie Wilkinson presents the true story of what actually occurred on the "savage" mountain. This work combines a criticism of the mainstream press's less-than-complete coverage of the tragedy and an insightful portrait of the lives of 21st-century Sherpas into an intelligent, white-knuckled adventure narrative. .A Texas Cowboy
By Richard Etulain, Charles A. Siringo. 2000
After a nomadic childhood, Charles Siringo signed on as a teenage cowboy for the noted Texas cattle king, Shanghai Pierce,…
and began a life that embraced all the hard work, excitement, and adventure readers today associate with the cowboy era. He "rid the Chisholm trail," driving 2,500 heads of cattle from Austin to Kansas; knew Tascosa--now a historic monument--when it was home to raucous saloons, red light districts, and a fair share of violence; and led a posse of cowboys in pursuit of Billy the Kid and his gang. First published in 1885, Siringo's chronicle of his life as a itchy-footed boy, cowhand, range detective, and adventurer was one the first classics about the Old West and helped to romanticize the West and its myth of the American cowboy. Will Rogers declared, "That was the Cowboy's Bible when I was growing up."A Short Walk to the Edge of Life
By Scott Hubbartt, Col. Tom Blase. 2014
"They say I'm crazy. That's OK. I'm just curious and determined."--From Scott Hubbartt's diary, November 2, 2011How Could He Possibly…
Make It Out Alive?It was supposed to be a simple day hike. Scott Hubbartt was a military veteran with years of survival training. Everyone who knew him considered him an expert adventurer.But Scott's trek into the treacherous backcountry canyons of the Peruvian Andes turned into a desperate fight to survive after he became hopelessly lost. As his eight-hour hike lengthened into days, Scott faced dehydration, hunger, and exhaustion. And that's when his true journey began.Chronicling the failures and miracles of a remarkable physical and spiritual passage, A Short Walk to the Edge of Life is the gripping, true story of a man who had to come to the end of himself before he could find his way home.On to the Alamo
By John Seelye, Richard Penn Smith. 2003
David "Davy" Crockett (1786-1836) was born in Tennessee, fought alongside Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, and later served…
three terms in the House of Representatives before heading to Texas, where he died defending the Alamo. Col. Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas, first published after Crockett's death and disingenuously attributed to him, was written by Richard Penn Smith as a narrative that promoted a sanitized account of the Alamo as a heroic effort by Americans to stem the Mexican "invasion" of Texas. The story, which was a huge success in its day, created a myth of the battle that pervaded the collective American memory for more than 150 years and reinforced the image of Davy Crockett as the "King of the Frontier."Missionary Adventures in the South Pacific
By Leona Crawford, David Livingston Crawford. 1967
Besides providing a wealth of contemporary factual information, diligently researched and presented in a remarkably lucid manner, this book is…
full of human interest: the braving of incredible dangers, the enduring of great hardships, and devastating storms; contacts with cannibals, beachcombers, and avaricious traders; polygamy, debauchery, and tribal wars, all portrayed with "you-were-there" vividness.The first "war correspondent," William H. Russell of The Times of London, described himself and his profession as "the miserable…
parent of a luckless tribe." Others saw it differently: the war correspondent became the stuff of dreams and an urgent romantic calling. . . . Now, Robert H. Patton, acclaimed historian, author of The Pattons ("Exceptional"--The Washington Post; "Truly remarkable"--John S. Eisenhower) and Patriot Pirates ("Soul-stirring--as good as reading a Patrick O'Brian novel, except that every word is true"--Michael Korda), rediscovers and celebrates, in Hell Before Breakfast, America's first war correspondents, forgotten today but legends in their time. Here are the men who, between 1850 and 1914, and particularly during America's Civil War and the Spanish-American War, led the most romantic and thrilling of lives on the edgiest frontiers of time and space, where empires fell and dynasties flourished; they were correspondents who saw the world, broke the story, were making the news during the years when newspapers made available the most foreign of landscapes and their circulation wars were revolutionizing contemporary life, shaping global events, and creating history. Patton writes of the decades of lightning progress and high adventure, when America was emerging as a great power and the monarchies of Europe battled for dominance through a series of brief, bloody imperial wars; when the newly discovered electric telegraph enabled these extraordinary first-person dispatches to be splashed across the daily newspapers then proliferating on both sides of the Atlantic. Through the eyes (and minds) of American adventurers, soldiers, and artists-turned-correspondents--Mark Twain and the painter John Millet among them--we see what they saw and what they brought to life: the Civil War, the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Russo-Turkish War. Patton writes about New York Herald reporter Henry Stanley, who led a caravan from the Tanzanian coast into the uncharted "cannibal country" and, after a 236-day trek, discovered the long lost and presumed dead Dr. David Livingstone . . . about Archibald Forbes of the London Daily News bringing to life in his dispatches the frantic assembly of barricades along Paris streets as royalists and Communists fought with bayonets following the Prussian invasion. Here are the fearless young correspondents, among them Henry Villard of Bavaria, a journalist who covered the Civil War and ended up a financial titan, head of the Northern Pacific Railway and an early investor in the company that would ultimately become General Electric; and George Smalley, chief war correspondent of the New York Tribune, who watched for twenty-four hours as the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia fought in the cornfields and woodlands around Antietam Creek. These correspondents were at center stage and, through their on-the-spot reporting, became legends in their time. Their intrepid spirit and sense of adventure inspired generations of storytellers, explorers, artists, writers, statesmen and politicians, and even moviemakers--from Rudyard Kipling and Winston Churchill to Theodore Roosevelt, D. W. Griffith, and Cecil B. DeMille--men whose adolescence was shaped during this spectacular age of war correspondence.From the Hardcover edition.Native American in the Land of the Shogun
By Frederik L. Schodt. 2003
How Japan, after 250 years of self--imposed isolation, began the process of modernization is in part the story of Ranald…
MacDonald. In 1848 this half-Scot, half-Chinook adventurer from the Pacific Northwest landed on an island off Hokkaido. Although promptly arrested and imprisoned for seven months in Nagasaki, the intelligent, well-educated MacDonald fascinated the Japanese and became one of their first teachers of English and Western ways. Based on primary research in Japan and North America, this book chronicles the events leading to MacDonald's journey and his later struggle to obtain recognition at home.Frederik L. Schodt has written extensively on Japan, including America and the Four Japans and Inside the Robot Kingdom. Fluent in spoken and written Japanese, he lives in San Francisco. In 2009 he was received the The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette for his contribution to the introduction and promotion of Japanese contemporary popular culture."Schodt's account of MacDonald's life and his eventual journey to Japan is depicted with the accuracy of a trained academic and the excitement of a skillful novelist." --Kyoto JournalFernandez de Oviedo's Chronicle of America: A New History for a New World
By Kathleen Ann Myers. 2007
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (1478-1557) wrote the first comprehensive history of Spanish America, the Historia general y natural de las…
Indias, a sprawling, constantly revised work in which Oviedo attempted nothing less than a complete account of the Spanish discovery, conquest, and colonization of the Americas from 1492 to 1547, along with descriptions of the land's flora, fauna, and indigenous peoples. His Historia, which grew to an astounding fifty volumes, includes numerous interviews with the Spanish and indigenous leaders who were literally making history, the first extensive field drawings of America rendered by a European, reports of exotic creatures, ethnographic descriptions of indigenous groups, and detailed reports about the conquest and colonization process. Fernández de Oviedo's Chronicle of America explores how, in writing his Historia, Oviedo created a new historiographical model that reflected the vastness of the Americas and Spain's enterprise there. Kathleen Myers uses a series of case studies--focusing on Oviedo's self-portraits, drawings of American phenomena, approaches to myth, process of revision, and depictions of Native Americans--to analyze Oviedo's narrative and rhetorical strategies and show how they relate to the politics, history, and discursive practices of his time. Accompanying the case studies are all of Oviedo's extant field drawings and a wide selection of his text in English translation. The first study to examine the entire Historia and its evolving rhetorical and historical context, this book confirms Oviedo's assertion that "the New World required a different kind of history" as it helps modern readers understand how the discovery of the Americas became a catalyst for European historiographical change.The Spanish cleric Bartolom de Las Casas is a key figure in the history of Spain's conquest of the Americas.…
Las Casas condemned the torture and murder of natives by the conquistadores in reports to the Spanish royal court and in tracts such as A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552). For his unrelenting denunciation of the colonialists' atrocities, Las Casas has been revered as a noble protector of the Indians and as a pioneering anti-imperialist. He has become a larger-than-life figure invoked by generations of anticolonialists in Europe and Latin America. Separating historical reality from myth, Daniel Castro provides a nuanced, revisionist assessment of the friar's career, writings, and political activities. Castro argues that Las Casas was very much an imperialist. Intent on converting the Indians to Christianity, the religion of the colonizers, Las Casas simply offered the natives another face of empire: a paternalistic, ecclesiastical imperialism. Castro contends that while the friar was a skilled political manipulator, influential at what was arguably the world's most powerful sixteenth-century imperial court, his advocacy on behalf of the natives had little impact on their lives. Analyzing Las Casas's extensive writings, Castro points out that in his many years in the Americas, Las Casas spent very little time among the indigenous people he professed to love, and he made virtually no effort to learn their languages. He saw himself as an emissary from a superior culture with a divine mandate to impose a set of ideas and beliefs on the colonized. He differed from his compatriots primarily in his antipathy to violence as the means for achieving conversion.On May 27, 1931, Auguste Piccard became the first human to enter the stratosphere, flying an experimental balloon he invented…
himself. Thirty years later, his son Jacques went to the bottom of the earth, descending to the Mariana Trench in a submarine built by him and Auguste. To this day, no one has gone deeper. Bertrand, the third generation, was the first person to fly around the world non-stop in a balloon. Now, he's building his own craft: a solar-powered plane to circumnavigate the globe. In "The Explorer Gene," Tom Cheshire asks how three generations of one family achieved such extraordinary feats, often with the consensus against them. None of the Piccards set out to explore: Auguste was a physicist, Jacques an economist and Bertrand a psychiatrist. Was it fate, a famous family name - or their explorer gene?Of a Fire on the Moon
By Norman Mailer. 1970
For many, the moon landing was the defining event of the twentieth century. So it seems only fitting that Norman…
Mailer--the literary provocateur who altered the landscape of American nonfiction--wrote the most wide-ranging, far-seeing chronicle of the Apollo 11 mission. A classic chronicle of America's reach for greatness in the midst of the Cold War, Of a Fire on the Moon compiles the reportage Mailer published between 1969 and 1970 in Life magazine: gripping firsthand dispatches from inside NASA's clandestine operations in Houston and Cape Kennedy; technical insights into the magnitude of their awe-inspiring feat; and prescient meditations that place the event in human context as only Mailer could.Canoeing a Continent: On the Trail of Alexander Mackenzie
By Max Finkelstein. 2002
A highly personal account of the travels of Max Finkelstein as he retraces, some two hundred years later, the route…
of Alexander Mackenzie, the first European to cross North America (1793). Mackenzie’s water trail is now commemorated as the Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route. More than just a travelogue of a canoe trip across Canada, this is an account that crosses more than two centuries. It is an exploration into the heart and mind of Alexander Mackenzie, the explorer, and Max Finkelstein, the "Voyageur-in-Training." Using Mackenzie’s journals and his own journal writings, the author creates a view of the land from two vantage points. The author retraced the route of Alexander Mackenzie across North America from Ottawa through to Cumberland House, Saskatchewan, and paddled the Blackwater, Fraser and Peace Rivers, completing the trip in 1999. This route is the most significant water trail in North America, and perhaps the world. "A ’must-read’ for everyone who loves wild places and the magic of canoes." - Cliff Jacobson, Outdoor Writer & Consultant "Past and present collide in this journey of discovery across the map of Canada. Max craves the extremes. He relishes in coping with what nature throws at him, punishing himself to find his physical limits and experiencing firsthand the inherent dangers in such a voyage. With Alexander Mackenzie as his guide and inspiration, Max finds the strength to carry on against all odds to forge poignant historical and personal links in this incredible cross-Canada paddling odyssey." - Becky Mason, Artist and Paddler, Chelsea, QuebecThe Twilight of Imperial Russia (Galaxy Book; Gb419 Ser.)
By Richard Charques. 1974
The fateful twenty-three years following the accession of the last of the Romanov Tsars formed the prologue to the Russian…
Revolution, and foreshadowed the motives and mental attitudes of Russian policy today. Richard Charques's detailed, vivid, and objective account of the reign of Nicholas II is based upon a wide study of Russian and other sources. It is given particular force and liveliness by the portrait gallery of the leading figures of the period; Nicholas II, the Tsaritsa Alexandra, Constantine Pobedonostsev, Sergius Witte, Lenin, Trotsky, Premier Stolypin, Miluikov, and Rasputin."Striking phrases, fine judgments, flashes of deep perception, flicker through these pages, illuminating the sad, sombre story, which Mr. Charques is not afraid to extend, by implication, into the present."--Observer (London)"Informative and well written, and the story of the last phase of the Romanovs is...movingly told."--New Statesman (London)"Mr. Charques writes with great lucidity and elegance; he has also unusual discernment, a healthy sense of historical reality, and a penetrating mind...Scrupulously fair."--Times Educational Supplement (London)"An uncommonly good book about the decline and fall of the Russian empire--lucid, incisive, well balanced, and extremely well written."--Chicago Sunday TribuneArctic Adventure: My Life in the Frozen North (Lyons Press Ser.)
By Peter Freuchen. 1976
Originally published in 1956, this book is a memoir by Danish explorer Peter Freuchen, a close friend and travel companion…
of Arctic legend Knud Rasmussen, and ended up living in Greenland for fifteen years, 800 miles from the North Pole--adopting the native ways of life, marrying an Inuit woman, and having two children along the way.Arctic Adventure is filled with tales of seal and polar bear hunts, enduring starvation, encountering people who had resorted to cannibalism, and the stirring experience of seeing the sun again after three months of winter darkness.Rich in human saga, Freuchen's warmth, wit, and literary talent make this recollection of real-life adventure stories a stand-out."Except for Richard E. Byrd, and despite his foreign beginnings, Freuchen was perhaps better known to more people in the United States than any other explorer of our time."--Evelyn Stefansson, The New York Times"[A] formidable and fascinating man"--Harriet Baker, AnOtherRichly illustrated throughout with maps and black-and-white photographs.First Russia, Then Tibet [Illustrated Edition]
By Robert Byron. 2016
Over the course of several months during 1931 and 1932, Robert Byron journeyed to three countries teetering on the brink…
of change.In Russia, which was stricken by famine, Lenin had just died, Stalin's dictatorship was in its infancy and the Great Terror had yet to begin. Having taken the first commercial flight to India, which took an astounding seven days, Byron was thrown into the tumultuous last years of the British Raj. Gandhi was imprisoned, while rioting and clashes between Hindus and Muslims had become commonplace. Finally Byron entered Tibet, the forbidden country. Exploring "The Land of Snows", he saw Tibet as it was when the then Dalai Lama was still ensconced in the Potala Palace, twenty years before China's invasion.First Russia, Then Tibet is an invaluable first-hand account of transformative moments in periods of change and upheaval.-Print ed.Richly illustrated throughout.The Saga of Cimba: A Journey From Nova Scotia To The South Seas (The sailor's Classics Ser.)
By Richard Maury. 2016
First published in 1939, this book is a vivid account of Richard Maury's voyage from New York to Fiji in…
the small, 35-foot, Nova Scotia-built schooner Cimba. When a 23-year-old Maury and a likeminded sailor filled with wanderlust set off into the winter North Atlantic on November 30, 1933, it proved to be an expedition of high adventure, and one embarked upon at a time when such voyages were practically unheard of. The reader is taken on a fascinating journey to Bermuda and, from there, to Grand Turk, Jamaica, Panama and through the Canal, with the two young sailors finding their every dream come true at Galapagos, Marquesas, Tahiti, Samoa--culminating in a gripping finale at Fiji..."If I were asked to pick the best book in recent years about deep water cruising in a small yacht, I would unhesitatingly choose The Saga of Cimba by Richard Maury."Maury went to sea because he loved being at sea and ports to him were interruptions rather than objectives. The story of his cruise is the story of the struggles and triumphs of his diminutive schooner in breasting thousands of miles of deep water. It is the sailing of the schooner that engrossed him. The yarn is the story of a boat rather than the story of her skipper. One can go on to the book's last enthralling page and be left speculating on what sort of a man this Maury is. He never tells you. You have to sense it from his attitude toward his little vessel. But you are left in no doubt about Cimba herself. You know what manner of ship she is. You know every inch of her by the time you have seen her to the Fijis."--Rudder Magazine"Told with such beauty that it will win the admiration not only of those who sail but of the whole reading public"--New York World Telegram."One of the finest sea yarns of all times"--Rudder."Bound to be the classic of this type"--Boston Transcript."Reality he most exciting small boat yarn I have read"--FELIX REISENBERG.The Dark Frigate
By Charles Boardman Hawes. 2016
THE DARK FRIGATE--Winner of the Newbery Medal.In seventeenth-century England, a terrible accident forces orphaned Philip Marsham to flee London in…
fear for his life. Bred to the sea, he signs on with the Rose of Devon, a dark frigate bound for the quiet shores of Newfoundland. Philip's bold spirit and knowledge of the sea soon win him his captain's regard. But when the Rose of Devon is seized in midocean by a devious group of men plucked from a floating wreck, Philip is forced to accompany these "gentlemen of fortune" on their murderous expeditions. Like it or not, Philip Marsham is now a pirate--with only the hangman awaiting his return to England.With its bloody battles, brutal buccaneers, and bold, spirited hero, this rousing tale will enthrall readers in search of seafaring adventure."No one, we think, has written so perfect a pirate tale since Treasure Island"--New York Herald Tribune