Off the Map

Forty-five gripping accounts of some of the most amazing feats in the historyof exploration are divided between three "ages of exploration," each of whichis prefaced by a lively essay introducing key aspects of the age in question.560 pp.

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On John Franklin's 1820 expedition to find the North-West Passage, Michel Teroahaute cannibalized two team members and was preparing a third when he was caught and killed. When Rene la Salle set off for the Mississippi Delta in 1684, he missed the target by five hundred miles, but on landing immediately built a prison for those who fell asleep on watch. Consummate storyteller Fergus Fleming brings together these and forty-three other gripping stories in Off the Map. Spanning three ages of exploration, it is a uniquely accessible and supremely entertaining history of adventure and endeavor. Off the Map recounts episodes both classic and forgotten: the "classics" are brought to life in more vivid colors than ever before; the lesser-known stories offer accounts of feats that are no less heroic or extraordinary but have long lain hidden in the undergrowth of history. From the Renaissance golden age of Columbus, da Gama, and Magellan to the twentieth-century heroics of polar explorers such as Peary, Scott, and Amundsen, this is an unforgettable journey into the annals of adventure.