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A personal and detailed account of a lifetime of challenges, achievements, death defying moments, awe and wonder in and about Antarctica. This is an easy-to-read autobiography of an individual with a remarkable breadth and depth of experience of living and working in Antarctica

In the middle of a moonless night in 1913, the Terra Nova steams silently into Oamaru harbour in New Zealand. The men aboard have a desperate mission - they must reach the relatives of Scott's South Pole expedition before the morning papers break the news that the whole party have perished.

100 of the most astonishing stories of human survival, adventure and exploration, chosen by Levison Wood.We are always captivated by tales of courage and bravery, of world-firsts and death-defying experiences. In this anthology, explorer and bestselling author Levison Wood has gathered 100 of the most fascinating accounts of human endurance throughout history. From the heroism of Antarctic explorers to pioneering women in the Middle East, from record-breaking athletes to survivors of war and torture, this wide-ranging collection embraces both classics of the genre, as well as new and neglected voices. The extracts are organised around a range of themes; you will find those who sought out new frontiers, or who purposely tested their physical limits in full knowledge of the dangers or risks they might face, but also those who endured persecution and suffering, or were thrust into life or death situations yet defied the odds to survive.Endurance is packed full of you-couldn't-make-it-up true stories and adventure fiction classics, from the high seas to the poles, from inhospitable jungles and deserts to the unknown realms of space, through physical and mental despair to euphoric highs. Yet all of these extraordinary stories celebrate the enduring nature of the human spirit, and show the mental and physical determination it sometimes takes to achieve one's aims.This varied and compelling collection will take you on an adventure around the world, but also on an emotional journey exploring what it means to be human.Includes extracts about and by Ernest Shackleton, Robert Falcon Scott, Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay, Amelia Earhart, Marie Colvin, Jon Krakauer, Solomon Northup, Ella Maillart, Freya Stark, Ed Stafford, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Aron Lee Ralston, María Elena Moyano, Gertrude Bell, Isabelle Eberhardt, Nellie Bly, Alex Honnold, Nelson Mandela, David Nott, Jules Verne, Neil Armstrong and Scott Kelly.

A sweeping historical epic and a radical new interpretation of Vasco da Gama's groundbreaking voyages, seen as a turning point in the struggle between Christianity and IslamIn 1498 a young captain sailed from Portugal, circumnavigated Africa, crossed the Indian Ocean, and discovered the sea route to the Indies and, with it, access to the fabled wealth of the East. It was the longest voyage known to history. The little ships were pushed beyond their limits, and their crews were racked by storms and devastated by disease. However, their greatest enemy was neither nature nor even the sheer dread of venturing into unknown worlds that existed on maps populated by coiled, toothy sea monsters. With bloodred Crusader crosses emblazoned on their sails, the explorers arrived in the heart of the Muslim East at a time when the old hostilities between Christianity and Islam had risen to a new level of intensity. In two voyages that spanned six years, Vasco da Gama would fight a running sea battle that would ultimately change the fate of three continents.An epic tale of spies, intrigue, and treachery; of bravado, brinkmanship, and confused and often comical collisions between cultures encountering one another for the first time; Holy War also offers a surprising new interpretation of the broad sweep of history. Identifying Vasco da Gama's arrival in the East as a turning point in the centuries-old struggle between Islam and Christianity?one that continues to shape our world?Holy War reveals the unexpected truth that both Vasco da Gama and his archrival, Christopher Columbus, set sail with the clear purpose of launching a Crusade whose objective was to reach the Indies; seize control of its markets in spices, silks, and precious gems from Muslim traders; and claim for Portugal or Spain, respectively, all the territories they discovered. Vasco da Gama triumphed in his mission and drew a dividing line between the Muslim and Christian eras of history?what we in the West call the medieval and the modern ages. Now that the world is once again tipping back East, Holy War offers a key to understanding age-old religious and cultural rivalries resurgent today.

The Forgotten True Story of America's Daring First Exploration of the PacificJust four years after the Revolutionary War and more than a decade before Lewis and Clark's expedition, a remarkable?but now forgotten?plan was hatched along the docks of Boston Harbor. Two ships carrying the flag of the newly formed United States would be dispatched in 1787 on a landmark adventure around South America's Cape Horn and into the largely uncharted waters of the Pacific Ocean, far past the western edge of the continent. The man chosen to lead the expedition was Captain John Kendrick, a master navigator who had made his name as a charismatic privateer during the Revolution. On the harrowing seven-year voyage that followed, Kendrick would establish the first American outpost in the remote Pacific Northwest, sail into a deadly cauldron of intertribal war in the Hawaiian Islands, wage a single-ship campaign to hold off advances of the British and Spanish empires, and narrowly escape capture by samurai in Japan before meeting his own violent and tragic end thousands of miles from home. Brilliantly brought to life by historian Scott Ridley, Morning of Fire is a startling rediscovery of a thrilling lost chapter of American history.

In 1945, twenty-four American servicemen and women boarded a plane to see ?Shangri-La,? a beautiful valley deep within Dutch New Guinea. But when the plane crashed, only three pulled through to battle for survival. Emotionally devastated and badly injured, the trio faced certain death. Caught between spear-carrying tribesmen and enemy Japanese, they trekked down the jungle-covered mountainside and straight into superstitious natives rumored to be cannibals.Drawn from interviews, Army documents, photos, diaries, and original film footage, Lost in Shangri-La recounts this true-life adventure for the first time. Mitchell Zuckoff reveals how the trio traversed the jungle; how brave Filipino-American paratroopers risked their lives to save the survivors; how a native leader protected the Americans; and how a cowboy colonel attempted an untried rescue mission to get them out. A riveting work of nonfiction that brings to life an odyssey at times terrifying, enlightening, and comic, Lost in Shangri-La is a thrill ride from beginning to end.

On the fiftieth anniversary of the first lunar landing, acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley takes a fresh look at the American space program, President John F. Kennedy's inspiring challenge, and the race to the moon.?Prepare to recall what it was like to be inspired and thrilled by American greatness. Doug Brinkley recounts, with deep research and exciting narrative, the bold spirit and faith in innovation embodied in John F. Kennedy's decision to launch a mission to the moon. His vision restored a vitality to America, something we could use today.??Walter IsaacsonJust months after being elected president of the United States, John F. Kennedy made an astonishing announcement to the nation: we would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. In this engrossing epic of contemporary history, Douglas Brinkley returns to the 1960s to re-create one of humankind's most exciting and ambitious achievements. American Moonshot brings together the extraordinary political, cultural, and scientific factors that fueled the birth and development of NASA and the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo projects, which catapulted the United States to victory in the space race against the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.Drawing on new primary source material and recent scholarship, Brinkley brings to life this fascinating history as no one has before. American Moonshot is a portrait of the brilliant men and women who made this giant leap possible, the technology that enabled them to propel men beyond Earth's orbit to the moon and return them safely, and the geopolitical tensions that ignited Kennedy's audacious dream. At the center of this story is Kennedy himself. As Brinkley shows, the president's call to action was more than just soaring oratory?Kennedy was intimately involved in the creation of the space program, and he made it a top priority of his New Frontier agenda, fighting the tough political battles to make his vision a reality.Featuring a cast of iconic and sometimes controversial figures, such as rocketeer Wernher von Braun, astronaut John Glenn, and space booster Lyndon Johnson, American Moonshot is a vivid, enthralling chronicle of one of the nation's most thrilling, hopeful, and turbulent eras. This is living history at its finest?but also an homage to scientific ingenuity, engineering genius, human curiosity, and the boundless American spirit.

November 4, 1922. For six seasons the legendary Valley of the Kings has yielded no secrets to Howard Carter and his archeological team: "We had almost made up our minds that we were beaten," he writes, "and were preparing to leave The Valley and try our luck elsewhere; and then - hardly had we set hoe to ground in our last despairing effort than we made a discovery that far exceeded our wildest dreams."Join Howard Carter in his fascinating odyssey toward the most dramatic archeological find of the century - the tomb of Tutankhamen. Written by Carter in 1923, only a year after the discovery, this book captures the overwhelming exhilaration of the find, the painstaking, step-by-step process of excavation, and the wonder of opening a treasure-filled inner chamber whose regal inhabitant had been dead for 3,000 years.104 on-the-spot photographs chronicle the phases of the discovery and the scrupulous cataloging of the treasures. The opening chapters discuss the life of Tutankhamen and earlier archeological work in the Valley of the Kings. An appendix contains fully captioned photographs of the objects obtained from the tomb. A new preface by Jon Manchip White adds information on Carter's career, recent opinions on Tutankhamen's reign, and the importance of Carter's discovery to Egyptologists.Millions have seen the stunning artifacts which came from the tomb - they are among the glories of the Cairo Museum, and have made triumphal tours to museums the world over. They are a testament to the enigmatic young king, and to the unwavering tenacity of the man who brought them to light as described in this remarkable narrative.

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An archival delve into the remarkable life, expeditions and voyages of Thor Heyerdahl, author of the bestselling adventure classic The Kon-Tiki ExpeditionNorwegian archaeologist, anthropologist, migration theorist, author and explorer Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002) spent decades substantiating unorthodox migration theories, with equally unconventional research methodologies: namely, practicable experiments that employed the construction of ancient vessels, driven across open oceans and waterways to retrace the movement and settlements of our ancestors.With October 2022 commemorating the 75th anniversary of Thor Heyerdahl's extraordinary 1947 voyage upon a balsa-wood raft, Kon-Tiki, from coastal South America to Polynesia across the Pacific Ocean, an enviable opportunity arises to reexplore Heyerdahl's innovative yet frequently contested theories and expeditions. Afforded unprecedented access to Oslo's Kon-Tiki Museum's extensive Heyerdahl archive, Thor Heyerdahl: Voyages of the Sun assembles a wealth of little-known and previously unseen correspondence, expedition logbooks, journals and photographs.Offering readers new and unexamined narratives from an explorer famed for his radical ideas and vehement rejections of abstracted academic theory, Thor Heyerdahl: Voyages of the Sun reviews the enduring relevance of the explorer's research and assesses it within larger narratives of modern archaeological, anthropological, marine science and migration research; international conservation initiatives; evolving globalization; and essential human-nature symbiosis.

For 250 years the author's family spread across the globe, helping to expand the British Empire and paint the map red. This is a personal reckoning with that dubious legacy, echoing down to the present in South Africa. It begins with the 'discovery' of Tahiti in 1767 by an ancestor, from whose log book Rostron reveals that his sailors were exchanging the ship's nails for sex with Tahitian maidens so that HMS Dolphin began, literally, to fall apart. After the Anglo-Boer war, having emigrated to South Africa, one grandfather became editor of the Sunday Times, voicing racist opinions, and later of the Rand Daily Mail, at that time a voice of the Randlords. Ironically, his other grandfather worked for the Communist Party and printed revolutionary pamphlets for the violent 1922 Rand Revolt. In a bizarre twist, Rostron's father managed the 1936 South African boxing team at the Berlin Olympics, where from under his nose their star boxer was recruited by the Nazis. Uncovering family secrets and mistaken myths, Rostron offers a unique insight into modern-day South Africa's colonial past.