Looks at the life and accomplishments of the leader of China's naval fleet in the early fifteenth century.

A fascinating narrative history of the great voyages of discovery, and is the only book of its kind to span the crucial period 1400-1600 in one readable book.

Superb artworks and photographs spanning three centuries document advances and watersheds in the field of natural science. The stories behind these images--of explorers, naturalists, artists and photographers--entwine into a fascinating study of human achievement and natural wonder. Among the many stories of adventure and great scientific endeavour are: Sir Hans Sloane's journey to Jamaica in 1687; James Cook's perilous Pacific crossings; and Darwin's historic voyage aboard HMS Beagle. Hand-picked from the vast Library of the Natural History Museum, London, the illustrations and artworks contained here form a rare collection, most of which have been presented for the first time in this stunning book.

From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, English buccaneers, privateers, and naval expeditions sought fame and fortune in the distant reaches of the South Sea. Beginning with the voyage of Francis Drake in the 1570s and continuing through that of George Anson in the 1740s, a series of predatory English adventurers pursued Spanish treasure, and for a few the dream of riches came true. For most, the voyages ended in disappointment, and sometimes death. This engrossing book investigates these maritime adventures and how they were described in popular accounts of the time--accounts that affected English consciousness and perceptions of the wider world and that influenced the planning and nature of the later great voyages of James Cook and others. Glyndwr Williams, a leading expert on the exploration of the Pacific Ocean, draws on printed accounts of South Sea voyages as well as unpublished records--buccaneer journals, expedition papers, and government documents from public and private archives. For English seamen preying on Spanish trade and treasure, the South Sea was limited to the waters lapping the shores of Chile, Peru, and Mexico. But the vision was wider for others, Williams reveals. Cartographers at home in England, untrammeled by the constraints and dangers of actual voyaging, produced speculative maps with a vast Terra Australis Incognita, with fabulous Islands of Solomon, and with a promised short passage from Atlantic to Pacific. Satirical and utopian writers from Joseph Hall to Jonathan Swift found ample space in the wide ocean for their fictional travelers. And contemporary published voyage accounts--marvelous, though not necessarily reliable--further blurred the line between real and imaginary, contributing to the alluring, exotic image of the South Sea that took root in English folk memory and long outlasted the age of the buccaneers.

The story of an uncovered voyage as colorful and momentous as any on record for the Age of Discovery--and of the Black mariner whose stunning accomplishment has been until now lost to history It began with a secret mission, no expenses spared. Spain, plotting to break Portugal's monopoly trade with the fabled Orient, set sail from a hidden Mexican port to cross the Pacific--and then, critically, to attempt the never-before-accomplished return, the vuelta. Four ships set out from Navidad, each one carrying a dream team of navigators. The smallest ship, guided by seaman Lope Martín, a mulatto who had risen through the ranks to become one of the most qualified pilots of the era, soon pulled far ahead and became mysteriously lost from the fleet. It was the beginning of a voyage of epic scope, featuring mutiny, murderous encounters with Pacific islanders, astonishing physical hardships--and at last a triumphant return to the New World. But the pilot of the fleet's flagship, the Augustine friar mariner Andrés de Urdaneta, later caught up with Martín to achieve the vuelta as well. It was he who now basked in glory, while Lope Martín was secretly sentenced to be hanged by the Spanish crown as repayment for his services. Acclaimed historian Andrés Reséndez, through brilliant scholarship and riveting storytelling--including an astonishing outcome for the resilient Lope Martín--sets the record straight.

Marco Polo, Ferdinand Magellan, David Livingstone, Amelia Earhart, Neil Armstrong: these are some of the greatest travellers of all time. This book chronicles their stories and many more, describing epic voyages of discovery from the extraordinary migrations out of Africa by our earliest ancestors to the latest voyages into space. In antiquity, we follow Alexander the Great to the Indus and Hannibal across the Alps; in medieval times we trek beside Genghis Khan and Ibn Battuta. The Renaissance brought Columbus to the Americas and the circumnavigation of the world. The following centuries saw gaps in the global maps filled by Tasman, Bering and Cook, and journeys made for scientific purposes, most famously by von Humboldt and Darwin. In modern times, the last inhospitable ends of the earth were reached including both poles and the world's highest mountain and new elements were conquered. With evocative photographs, paintings and portraits, The Great Journeys in History reveals the stories of those who were there first, who explored the unexplored and who set out into the unknown, bringing alive the romance and thrill of travel.