Dimensions
236 x 315 x 26mm
This Atlas is a fascinating and authoritative reference to the history of exploration. With a highly readable and informative text, supported by almost 100 specially dawn maps and 300 photographs and illustrations, it races the journeys of the discoverers of our world, recording their achievements and their varied motives: desire for land, wealth and fame, missionary zeal, political and cultural empire-building, scientific enquiry and sheer curiosity.
The first section of the book provides an outline of the recorded journeys of exploration in Europe, Asia and Africa from about 3000 BC to AD 1495. In the following nine sections the expeditions of explorers are described - region by region - from the time when European began to discover the world, at the end of the 15th century, to the present day.
In each section, the main routes of the explorers are depicted on graphic relief maps, while photographs, paintings and engravings vividly portray the great variety of terrain through which these courageous men and women passed. Also included are maps drawn at different times in history which reveal cartographers' growing knowledge of the shape of the world's continents and oceans.
The final section of the atlas contains biographical details of many of the great explorers, geographers and cartographers whose achievements are described in the text. It is followed by a timechart which summarises the history of exploration over the last 5,000 years.
Features:
- 100 detailed maps: Specially commissioned route maps, with superb three-dimensional modelling, trace the journeys travelled by the great explorers in every continent, and record how our knowledge of the world gradually evolved.
- Comprehensive text: The text, written by leading authorities recommended by the Royal Geographical Society, London, covers exploration of the entire globe, continent by continent, from the earliest times. It is supplement by 200 concise biographies of the greatest explorers.
- 300 illustrations: Nearly 300 photographs, paintings, engravings and historical maps, newly researched from archives throughout the world, reveal the immensely varied landscapes through which the explorers passed, and the peoples, flora and fauna they encountered.
