Worlds to Explore: Classic Tales of Travel and Adventure from National Geographic

by Mark Jenkins (Author)

• Used

  Illustrated
  2007

  $5.76

  Polar fleece, titanium, and GPS have forever changed the face of exploration. Today, an explorer can make a phone call from the top of Mount Everest and geo-locate herself in the thickest rainforest or the widest desert. Yet despite these advances, few modern journeys come close to the charm and romance of The Desert Road to Turkestan, Mysterious Temples of the Jungle, and Airplanes Come to the Isles of Spice. In the first half of the twentieth century, before mass tourism opened the world to travel, National Geographic delivered news of faraway lands, strange rituals, and high adventure to readers eager for knowledge of the world and all that is in it. It was an era when many maps still had blank spaces marked unknown. Finding out about those blanks, and reporting back to headquarters, fueled a remarkable period of exploration and built one of the largest scientific and educational institutions in the world. In addition to accounts from famous contributors including Robert Peary, Amelia Earhart, and Theodore Roosevelt, Worlds to Explore collects long-forgotten gems that get to the very heart of the romance of travel. Just try to resist the adventures promised in An American Girl Cycles Across Transylvania, A Thousand Miles Along the Great Wall of China and By Felucca Down the Nile. Worlds to Explore takes readers back to an era of tramp steamers, PanAm Clippers, and camel caravans; when letters, not email were the main form of correspondence, and the world still brimmed with unexplored corners. Worlds to Explore collects 54 of the very best of these stories and reprints them for a modern audience. Brief introductory essays by Mark Jenkins set the selections in context and provide an engaging narrative framework that traces the growth of the National Geographic Society through this remarkable era, and an introduction by bestselling author Simon Winchester evokes an era when the world beckoned with the promise of magnificent discoveries.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2006

  $3.28

  Polar fleece, titanium, and GPS have forever changed the face of exploration. Today an explorer can make a phone call from the top of Mount Everest and geo-locate himself in the thickest rain forest or the widest desert.