"The RGS Exploration Experience" begins in the Golden Age of exploration with some of the earliest explorers from the Vikings to the early Chinese travellers, the discovery of the Americas by French and Spanish explorers and the eventual circumnavigation of the globe. The book is then divided into continents to detail later exploration of countries all over the world. Starting in the Americas with the brave pioneers who forged new routes into and beyond the frontiers, it moves onto the exotic and remote parts of Asia, the wilds of deepest Africa, beautiful Pacific islands, the hostile terrain of Australia and finally the frozen expanses of the Arctic and Antarctic. Covering professional explorers, botanists hunting for undiscovered plants, missionaries spreading Christianity into unexplored regions, women, aristocrats and explorers of many different nationalities, the "RGS Exploration Experience" is an essential journey for armchair and actual explorers both young and old. The memorabilia includes: booklet of pages from John Hanning Speke's sketchbook, watercolour sketch by Samuel Baker, and drawing of the Victoria Falls by David Livingstone.

Table of Contents

Exploration Before the Golden Age: Pre-Columbian Exploration; Christopher Columbus; Pupils of Henry the Navigator; The Circumnavigators; The Spanish in North America; The French in North America; The Spanish in Latin America; The Americas: From Hudson Bay to Bering Strait; Meriwether Lewis and William Clark; Manifest Destiny; Scientific Exploration of South America; Asia: Exploration of China and southern Asia; Siberia; The Near and Middle East; Central Asia and Tibet; Sven Hedin; Africa: North Africa and the Sahara; West Africa and the Niger; Southern Africa; East Africa and the Sources of the Nile; David Livingstone; The Heart of Darkness; Australia and the Pacific: The Great Pacific Voyages; James Cook; The Australian Coastal Regions; Into the Australian Interior; The Arctic: Early Exploration; Northwest Passage; Franklin Searches; Fridtjof Nansen; North Pole Attempts; North Pole Claimed; Antarctica: Early Exploration; The Great National Expeditions; The First Winterers; Assault on the Pole; Douglas Mawson; Crossing the Continent.

Author Biography

Beau Riffenburgh lives in Wales. He has written several books on Exploration including The Myth of the Explorer (Oxford Paperbacks, 1994) and Shackleton's Forgotten Expedition: The Voyage of Nimrod (Bloomsbury, 2005).