In 732 major articles, Raymond Howgego's Encyclopedia of Exploration 1800 to 1850 attempts to detail every significant traveller, voyager or expedition that set out during the period. Its indexes provide the names of over 3000 travellers and 1000 ships, while the bibliographies cite more than 10,000 works of reference. Extensive biographical information is included for the travellers themselves, placing every expedition thoroughly in its historical context. The text is fully cross-referenced between articles, whilst every article is supplemented by a comprehensive bibliography of both primary and secondary sources.

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.

Profiling more than 1400 print and electronic sources, this book helps connect librarians and researchers to the most relevant sources of information in genealogy and biography.

In Mastering the Niger, David Lambert recalls Scotsman James MacQueen (1778–1870) and his publication of A New Map of Africa in 1841 to show that Atlantic slavery—as a practice of subjugation, a source of wealth, and a focus of political struggle—was entangled with the production, circulation, and reception of geographical knowledge. The British empire banned the slave trade in 1807 and abolished slavery itself in 1833, creating a need for a new British imperial economy. Without ever setting foot on the continent, MacQueen took on the task of solving the “Niger problem,” that is, to successfully map the course of the river and its tributaries, and thus breathe life into his scheme for the exploration, colonization, and commercial exploitation of West Africa. Lambert illustrates how MacQueen’s geographical research began, four decades before the publication of the New Map, when he was managing a sugar estate on the West Indian colony of Grenada. There MacQueen encountered slaves with firsthand knowledge of West Africa, whose accounts would form the basis of his geographical claims. Lambert examines the inspirations and foundations for MacQueen’s geographical theory as well as its reception, arguing that Atlantic slavery and ideas for alternatives to it helped produce geographical knowledge, while geographical discourse informed the struggle over slavery.