"The sketchbook has been the one constant in explorers' kits for centuries of adventure. Often private, they are records of immediate experiences and discoveries, and in their pages we can see what the explorers themselves encountered. This remarkable book showcases 70 such sketchbooks, kept by intrepid men and women as they journeyed perilous and unknown environments?frozen wastelands, high mountains, barren deserts, and dense rainforests?with their...

In 1859, at age fourteen, Florence Szász stood before a room full of men and waited to be auctioned to the highest bidder. But slavery and submission were not to be her destiny: Sam Baker, a wealthy English gentleman and eminent adventurer, was moved by compassion and an immediate, overpowering empathy for the young woman, and braved extraordinary perils to help her escape. Together, Florence and Sam -- whose love would remain passionate and constant...

"Mavericks, Mystics, and Misfits: Americans Against the Grain takes the reader on a journey across American history, from the colonial period to the present, through the life stories of exceptional men and women who have responded in unconventional ways to the challenges and circumstances of their time and place. The journey begins in Puritan New England, where the country's roots were planted. It then visits America's war of independence, before...

Professor Hardwigg, his nephew Harry, and their guide Hans explore a volcanic crater in Iceland that leads them to the center of the Earth and to incredible and horrifying discoveries.

The story of Daniel Boone is the story of America-its ideals, its promise, its romance, and its destiny. Bestselling, critically acclaimed author Robert Morgan reveals the complex character of a frontiersman whose heroic life was far stranger and more fascinating than the myths that surround him. This rich, authoritative biography offers a wholly new perspective on a man who has been an American icon for more than two hundred years, a hero as important...

Recounts the efforts of a young Inuit woman named Ada Blackjack and her four male companions to colonize a remote, desolate Arctic island, the deaths of her associates, her struggle to survive, and her return to civilization.

"After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve 'the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century': what happened to British explorer Percy Fawcett. In 1925 Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization. For centuries Europeans believed the world's largest jungle concealed the glittering El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many convinced that the Amazon was...

"While Amundsen, Franklin, and Peary were first to explore the furthest geographical reaches of the Polar North, Knud Rasmussen was the first to explore its culture and its soul. Part Danish, part Inuit, the famed explorer anthropologist made an epic three year journey by dog sled from Greenland to Alaska recording not only the landscapes but also the songs and stories of the Eskimo people. In the ranks of the great explorer/writers who opened hitherto...

When Yasmin's father explains to her about explorers and maps, Yasmin decides to make a map of her neighborhood and she brings it along on a trip to the farmers' market with her mother--but will the map help her when they are separated?