John Keay

Dispersed across India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, Midnight's Descendants,the generations born since the 1947 midnight hour partition" of British India,are the world's fastest…

Stranded on Bering Island - Georg Wilhelm Steller As physician and scientific know-all on Vitus Bering's 1741 voyage, Steller shared its triumphs, including landing the…

Alarms amongst the Uzbeks - Alexander Burnes Of all the "forbidden" cities (Timbuktu, Mecca, Lhasa, Riyadh and so on) none enjoyed a more fearsome reputation…

Escape from Riyadh - William Gifford Palgrave A scholar and a solider, a Jesuit and a Jew, a French spy and a British ambassador- Palgrave…

Alone in Africa - Mungo Park Park's 1795-7 odyssey in search of the Niger first awakened the world to the feasibility of a white man…

Among the Sudanese - James Bruce Bruce reached the source of the Blue Nile in 1771, a century before the search for the source of…

Landfall at Botany Bay - James Cook The son of a Yorkshire farm labourer, Cook won distinction as a naval hydrographer but was still a…

First Crossing of America - Alexander Mackenzie "Endowed by nature with an acquisitive mind and an enterprising spirit", Mackenzie, a Scot engaged in the Canadian…

Eating Dirt in Venezuela - Alexander von Humboldt Geographer, geologist, naturalist, anthropologist, physician and philosopher, Baron von Humboldt brought to exploration a greater range of…

Four Years in the Ice - John Ross Disgraced and dishonored for his report of an imaginary mountain range blocking the most likely access to…

Farthest South - Ernest Henry Shackleton Born in Ireland, Shackleton joined the merchant navy before being recruited for Captain Scott's 1901 expedition to Antarctica. He…

Many nations define themselves in terms of territory or people China defines itself in terms of history. Taking into account the country's unrivaled, voluminous tradition…

The great explorers were the celebrities of their day - the romance and danger of their daring expeditions captured the public imagination and the world's…