Showing titles in Expeditions & Discoveries

We have long been taught to presume that modern global history began when the "Old World" encountered the "New", when Christopher Columbus “discovered” America in 1492. As Caroline Dodds Pennock conclusively shows in this groundbreaking book, for tens of thousands of Aztecs, Maya, Totonacs, Inuit and others—enslaved people, diplomats, explorers, servants, traders—the reverse was true: they discovered Europe. For them, Europe comprised savage shores, a land of riches and marvels, yet perplexing for its brutal disparities of wealth and quality of life, and its baffling beliefs.

En agosto de 1897, el joven comandante belga Adrien de Gerlache partió para una expedición de tres años a bordo del barco Bélgica con sueños de gloria. Su destino era el extremo inexplorado de la Tierra: el continente helado de la Antártida.

Embarque nas naus e caravelas da vasta frota comandada por Pedro Álvares Cabral. Circule por entre marujos lusitanos, pilotos árabes, astrólogos judeus e nobres ibéricos. Viaje com eles por mares tempestuosos, em meio a perigos desconhecidos ou calmarias enervantes.

Acclaimed South African writer Darrel Bristow-Bovey has a deeply personal relationship with the story of Endurance and in this lyrical, loving journey into past and present, into humanity and the natural world, above and below the Antarctic ice, he revisits the famous story from a contemporary perspective, wondering why it seems to mean more today than ever before, and exploring our changing relationship with ourselves and the ice, and with our shared story of survival.

Muitos leitores já passearam pelas lindas paisagens descritas nesta seleção de textos do livro "Tratado descritivo do Brasil" de Gabriel Soares de Sousa: Porto de Galinhas, Itamaracá, Cabo de Santo Agostinho... Neste descritivo, no entanto, poderão enxergar como era este cenário há quase 500 anos, quando Olinda, por exemplo, tinha apenas 700 habitantes!

Como o título bem diz, essa seleção de textos do livro "Tratado descritivo do Brasil" de Gabriel Soares de Sousa, descreve de forma pitoresca parcela da costa Norte do Brasil ao final do século XVI. Curioso demais encontrar aqui, entre outras singularidades, a referência às Amazonas que atacaram Francisco de Orellana e deram nome ao rio maior.

In this true story of adventure, author Jack Nisbet recreates the life and times of David Thompson—fur trader, explorer, surveyor, and mapmaker. From 1784 to 1812, Thompson explored western North America, and his field journals provide the earliest written accounts of the natural history and indigenous cultures of the what is now British Columbia, Alberta, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Thompson was the first person to chart the entire route of the Columbia river, and his wilderness expeditions have become the stuff of legend.

Prepare-se para uma viagem a mares nunca dantes navegados. Neste audiolivro, fruto de uma extraordinária pesquisa, que incluiu a consulta a centenas de manuscritos raros e até então pouco consultados, o historiador Fábio Pestana mostra como Portugal construiu, primeiro graças à pimenta, depois ao açúcar, o seu vasto império colonial.

Figura indissociável da conquista da América, Hernán Cortez guarda muitas ambiguidades. Representa, ao mesmo tempo, o extermínio de um império indígena vasto e populoso e a origem do povo mestiço que constitui o México. A campanha liderada por Cortez no mundo asteca entraria para a História da cultura ocidental como um dos maiores símbolos do contato entre culturas e o consequente choque de valores de sociedades distintas. E foi a partir desse encontro que um novo mundo, aos poucos, se ergueu e outra sociedade, sincrética, nem europeia e nem indígena, começou a ser formada.

Juan Sebastián Elcano, aquel vasco cuidadoso en el vestir y parco de palabras, cuya excepcional inteligencia hizo posible el éxito final de la arriesgada travesía, se yergue como el protagonista indiscutible de una hazaña que dejó atónitos a sus contemporáneos y que, sin duda, volverá a asombrar ahora al lector actual con esta obra apasionante en la que también hay espacio para el humor y los enredos galantes.

Looking out his porch window one spring morning, Adam Shoalts spotted a majestic peregrine falcon flying across the neighbouring fields near Lake Erie. Each spring, falcons migrate from southernmost Canada to remote arctic mountains. Grabbing his backpack and canoe, Shoalts resolved to follow the falcon’s route north on an astonishing 3,400-kilometre journey to the Arctic.

During the Ice Age, early humans saw themselves constantly reflected in these planes of ice - and became more reflective themselves, beginning to create works of art, innovate through technology and develop language. In A Cold Spell: A Human History of Ice, Max Leonard takes us from the beginning of our story to the modern day, tracing the ways ice has influenced our development, our economies, our social customs and our lives - and what it means for us that it is rapidly disappearing from our planet.

The discovery of the North and South Poles. The summiting of Everest. The moon landing. The (largely unknown) birth of climate change science. These are just some of the stories from The Explorers Club, the organization that, since its inception in 1904, has pushed the envelope of human curiosity. This guided tour of The Club’s most riveting journeys is full of fascinating anecdotes about The Club’s distinguished members, including Teddy Roosevelt, Neil Armstrong, and Jane Goodall.

The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the 19th century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the 20th. In 1819, the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with 20 crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than 90 days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, disease, and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival.

Aníbal, uno de los personajes más fascinantes de todos los tiempos, alabado por unos y tratado de sanguinarios por otros, pertenece a esa saga de personajes históricos que, después de más de dos mil años, siguen ejerciendo sobre sus estudiosos una mágica seducción. Sobre un fondo rigurosamente histórico, esta novela sobre Aníbal en la antigua Qart-Hadast, nunca antes tratada por escritores, constituye una documentada exposición y una recreación exhaustiva de modos y costumbres de aquella época decisiva.

Unsettled tells the story of two hundred Highlanders who flee the Scottish Clearances in 1813 to establish a settlement on the Red River in what eventually became Winnipeg. They are sponsored by the Earl of Selkirk, a man who has never been west of Montreal. Families who have never left their Highland crofts take an epic journey over ocean, up wild rivers, and through boundless wilderness, surviving disease and brutal winter only to face the determined opposition of fur barons who want no sodbusters threatening their trade and are prepared to stop at nothing to destroy their dream.

A History of the Philippines is a short, dense and temporally expansive book. It starts with the Evolution of the Land 100 million years ago. The writing is predominantly dry, dispassionate and academic. It's full of details, and often presumes an existing familiarity with Philippine history and culture, introducing terms with no definition provided.