Showing titles in Expeditions & Discoveries

What if humanity's most important invention wasn't the steam engine or the printing press, but a machine that you've never heard of, built by a man that history forgot? Eight billion people owe their lives to a man you've never heard of. In Forgotten, Jaime Dávila uncovers the astonishing true story of Cornelis Corneliszoon, a 16th-century Dutch tinkerer whose simple invention – the wind-powered sawmill – unleashed a chain reaction that built the modern world. Faster ships. Global trade. Stock markets. The Industrial Revolution.

The story begins in 1629, when the pride of the Dutch East India Company, the Batavia, is on its maiden voyage en route from Amsterdam to the Dutch East Indies, laden down with the greatest treasure to leave Holland. The magnificent ship is already boiling over with a mutinous plot that is just about to break into the open when, just off the coast of Western Australia, it strikes an unseen reef in the middle of the night.

The rise to global predominance of Western civilization is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five hundred years. All over the world, an astonishing proportion of people now work for Western-style companies, study at Western-style universities, vote for Western-style governments, take Western medicines, wear Western clothes, and even work Western hours. Yet six hundred years ago the petty kingdoms of Western Europe seemed unlikely to achieve much more than perpetual internecine warfare. It was Ming China or Ottoman Turkey that had the look of world civilizations.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * “Audacious…Life on the Mississippi sparkles.” —The Wall Street Journal * “A rich mix of history, reporting, and personal introspection.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch * “Both a travelogue and an engaging history lesson about America’s westward expansion...

The great unknown of the Southwest is conquered by a one-armed man and his crew of adventurers, placing the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon on the map of the American continent. It is a journey no human being had ever made before. Dangerous rapids, narrow canyon walls offering no escape, terrifying river waterfalls, capsized boats, near drowning, lost equipment and disillusioned men are dramatically described by John Wesley Powell, leader of this adventurous party.

In The Normans, Lars Brownworth follows their story, from the first shock of a Viking raid on an Irish monastery to the exile of the last Norman Prince of Antioch. In the process, he brings to vivid life the Norman tapestry's rich cast of characters: figures like Rollo the Walker, William Iron-Arm, Tancred the Monkey King, and Robert Guiscard. The Normans presents a fascinating glimpse of a time when a group of restless adventurers had the world at their fingertips.

Brace for Impact: Stories of Hope and Horror Fifteen plane crashes. Fifteen stories of survival. From the frozen wastelands of Siberia to the depths of the Amazon rainforest, Brace for Impact captures the raw terror, resilience, and impossible decisions faced by those who lived through aviation disasters. Some found hope in the wreckage—others faced the brutal realities of isolation, injury, and the unforgiving elements. Told with gripping intensity, these true-to-life narratives echo the haunting suspense of your favorite Survival Stories, placing you inside the doomed cabins, the ...

"Damron's subtle pacing manages the tension perfectly." —AudioFile on Empire of Ice and Stone "Listen to this if you want to hear a narrator at the top of his game recount a fascinating—and at times disturbing—true story of adventure, disaster, discovery, cannibalism, and more. Will Damron...

Michael Palin brings the fascinating story of the Erebus and its occupants to life, from its construction as a bomb vessel in 1826 through the flagship years of James Clark Ross’s Antarctic expedition and finally to Sir John Franklin’s quest for the holy grail of navigation - a route through the Northwest Passage, where the ship disappeared into the depths of the sea for more than 150 years. It was rediscovered under the arctic waters in 2014.

Now a major Netflix film co-written by and starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones) The harrowing, amazing, and often amusing personal account of two mismatched Arctic explorers who banded together to keep themselves sane on an historic expedition gone horribly wrong Ejnar Mikkelsen was...

Esta crónica, publicada en 1568 se presenta como un testimonio de primera mano que desafía las versiones oficiales y más idealizadas de otros cronistas contemporáneos, como Hernán Cortés en sus Cartas de Relación y Francisco López de Gómara en su "Historia de la conquista de México". Bernal Díaz del Castillo se propone corregir lo que él considera omisiones o distorsiones de los hechos, ofreciendo una narrativa más terrenal y menos heroica de los eventos.

A dramatic rethinking of the encounter between Montezuma and Hernando Cortés that completely overturns what we know about the Spanish conquest of the Americas On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital...

In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection. At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.

Embark on a thrilling journey through time with 500 Interesting Facts About the Age of Discovery, that bring history to life, and uncover the stories that shaped the world as we know it today. This audiobook is not just a collection of dates and names; it’s a gateway to an era of unparalleled exploration, innovation, and conquest. Examine the daring voyages of Portuguese, Spanish, British, French, and Dutch explorers.

Drawing on rarely examined diaries and journals, Down the Great Unknown is the first book to tell the full, dramatic story of the Powell expedition. On May 24, 1869 a one-armed Civil War veteran, John Wesley Powell and a ragtag band of nine mountain men embarked on the last great quest in the...

A remarkable true story of adventure, betrayal, and survival set in one of the world's most inhospitable places. In 1906, from atop a snow-swept hill in the ice fields northwest of Greenland, hundreds of miles from another human being, Commander Robert E. Peary spotted a line of mysterious peaks looming in the distance. He called this unexplored realm "Crocker Land". Scientists and explorers agreed that the world-famous explorer had discovered a new continent rising from the frozen Arctic Ocean.

For many, the colonial story of Australia starts with Captain Cook's discovery of the east coast in 1770, but it was some 164 years before his historic voyage that European mariners began their romance with the immensity of the Australian continent. Between 1606 and 1688, while the British had their hands full with the Gunpowder Plot and the English Civil War, it was highly skilled Dutch seafarers who discovered and mapped the majority of the vast, unknown waters and land masses in the Indian and Southern Oceans.

From the #1 bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God, a jaw-dropping discovery of an Egyptian tomb opens up a slew of archaeological mysteries and deadly tales. What’s it like to be the first to enter an Egyptian burial chamber that’s been sealed for thousands of years? From the...

In 1948, a young Australian mining engineer named Ben Carlin set out to do the impossible: circumnavigate the globe, by land and sea, in a single vehicle. The vehicle in question was an amphibious jeep developed by the U.S. Army, which Carlin christened Half-Safe, after a deodorant slogan. It was a mechanical mongrel that was supposed to move with equal ease across land and water but in practice wasn't much good for either one. Undaunted, Carlin and his wife Elinore set off across the Atlantic Ocean with dreams of fame and fortune, and of carving a small notch in history.

Ever since Christopher Columbus stepped off the Santa Maria onto what is today San Salvador, in the Bahamas, and announced that he had arrived in the Orient, the Caribbean has been a stage for projected fantasies and competition between world powers. In Empire’s Crossroads, British American historian Carrie Gibson traces the story of this coveted area from the northern rim of South America up to Cuba, and from discovery through colonialism to today, offering a vivid, panoramic view of this complex region and its rich, important history.