A comprehensive reference guide to the history and literature of exploration, travel and colonization from the earliest times to the year 1800. The vast scope of the Encyclopedia of Exploration makes it a work unlike any other in its combination of historical, biographical and bibliographical data. It includes a catalogue of all known expeditions, voyages and travels, as well as biographical information on the travellers themselves, which places them in their historical context. The Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800 is a massive undertaking resulting in a work that extends to 1.2 million words in almost 1200 pages. The 2327 major articles have generated index entries totalling more than 7500 names of persons or ships mentioned in the text. Within the text itself there are about 4000 cross-references between articles. Altogether nearly 20,000 bibliographical citations accompany the articles. A considerable quantity of information in this book is presented here for the first time in English.

Drawing on a thousand years of European travel writing and mapmaking, Dym suggests that after centuries of text-based itineraries and on-the spot directions guiding travelers and constituting their reports, maps in the fifteenth century emerged as tools for Europeans to support and report the results of land and sea travel. With each succeeding generation, these linear journey maps have become increasingly common and complex, responding to changes in forms of transportation, such as air and motor car ‘flight’ and print technology, especially the advent of multi-color printing. This is their story.