Search results

In 1845 Sir John Franklin and his expedition, sailing on the Erebus and the Terror, set out in search of the Northwest Passage. In their pursuit of that elusive water route across North America they all perished, their fate remaining unknown for many years. Franklin and his crew inspired a spate of books on exploration in the nineteenth century, and interest in his expedition has revived with the recent discovery of the bodies of several of its members, perfectly preserved by ice for nearly a ce...

Deep inside the little Amazon, the jungles of Honduras' "Mosquito Coast" - one of the largest, wildest, and most impenetrable stretches of tropical land in the world-lies the fabled city of Ciudad Blanca: the White City. For centuries, it has lured explorers, including Spanish conquistador Herman Cortes. Some intrepid souls got lost within its dense canopy; some disappeared. Others never made it out alive. Then, in 1939, an American explorer and spy named Theodore Morde claimed that he had locat...

This is the story of Tully's great-great uncle Michael, who was hanged for murder more than a century ago. According to family lore, Michael was attacked in a pub - accused by his attacker because as an Irish immigrant he was taking work from locals. As an Irish Catholic immigrant during an economic depression at a time when anti-Irish prejudice was rampant, he never stood a chance of justice. The bare bones of the story are more or less 'true'. but have been fleshed out using the author's imagi...

From the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries Japanese monks created hundreds of maps to construct and locate their place in a Buddhist world. This expansively illustrated volume is the first to explore the largely unknown archive of Japanese Buddhist world maps and analyze their production, reproduction, and reception. In examining these fascinating sources of visual and material culture, author D. Max Moerman argues for an alternative history of Japanese Buddhism—one that compels us to...

Mission in the Marianas was first published in 1975. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.The source of this translation is a pamphlet published in Madrid in about 1671 about the culture of the people of the Marianas Islands and a report of the second year of the Jesuit mission there. It was compiled by Jesuit Andres de Ledesma from letters writ...

The bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of his ground-breaking publication On the Origin of Species will be celebrated throughout the world in 2009 with major exhibitions and a major motion picture about his life. Author James Taylor commemorates the anniversaries with a book that takes the title of one of Darwin's great works to present an updated and comprehensively illustrated version of the travels of the Beagle. He includes a full history of the storied ves...

A revised edition of the First Edition Edited by Charles T. Beke, Phil.D., F.S.A. (First Series 13, 1853), with a new introduction. With a 'Postscript' of five unnumbered pages at the beginning of the text. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1876.

From Captain Scott's last diary entry in the blizzards of Antarctica to Stanley struggling lost and alone through the Congo, this collection of eyewitness accounts by the great explorers and adventurers of yesterday presents the opening-up of the world as living history. John Keay has selected the passages, provided an introduction to the book and editorial notes on each account. Each exploration is also accompanied by a full-page map, and 16 pages of black-and-white archival photographs are inc...