"Travel back in time and meet the explorers! Who was Leif Erikson? What did Christopher Columbus discover? When was the moon landing? Find the answers to these questions and more with interactive flaps that bring history to life. Don't just read about the explorers ... meet them!"--Page 4 of cover

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Penetrating biographies written by a group of distinguished travel writers, broadcasters, and historians reveal the lives, motives, and passions of forty major explorers in history. It has always been mankind’s gift, or curse, to be inquisitive, and through the ages people have been driven to explore the limits of the worlds known to them—and beyond. Here are the stories of forty of the world’s greatest explorers from Europe, America, Asia, and Australia. These are men and women who changed our perception of the world through their courageous adventures. Organized thematically, the book opens with the oceanic journeys of five hundred years ago, when the great era of recorded exploration began. The following sections look at The Land, Rivers, Polar Ice, Deserts, Life on Earth, and New Frontiers. Many of these explorers recounted their journeys in vivid firsthand accounts; others were superb artists or photographers. The book features quotes from their journals and reports, and it is illustrated with paintings, photographs, engravings, and maps, so that we can experience their adventures through their own eyes and in their own words. Featured explorers include: Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, James Cook, Lewis and Clark, Richard Burton, Samuel de Champlain, David Livingstone, Roald Amundsen, Gertrude Bell, Alexander von Humboldt, Yuri Gagarin, and Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

SC-SPCOLL (copy 1): From the James and Margaret Beveridge Fonds.

Examines the adventures of such early explorers of America as Columbus, Dias, and Cabot. Includes information on the events, society, and superstitions of the times.

Uses an interactive approach featuring text, colorful illustrations, and lift-the-flaps to bring dinosaur history to life for young readers.

The urge to explore is an ancient one in the human species. The earliest explorations were driven by physical needs like food and shelter. But later with greater resources at their disposal; human beings became curious about their extended geographical environment and began to venture further from their safe zone. Over time mankind began to recognize that with successful exploration came rewards. In fact access to virgin natural resources was one of the driving factors behind the Golden Age of Exploration during the 15th and 16th centuries when many significant discoveries were made about the geography of the Earth. Again in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; much of the exploration of Africa and Asia were driven by the need to discover and colonize new markets for goods made by European countries. The 20 Greatest Explorers of the World traces these currents in the journey of human exploration by focusing on the most famous explorers in history as well as some lesser known names who are nevertheless responsible for charting new territories. Ranging from classical Greece to the mid twentieth century; traversing all parts of the globe and indeed beyond it; these explorers are testament to the fact that the desire to know and discover has inspired humans across time and space in history.