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 headl

Escape from Riyadh - William Gifford Palgrave A scholar and a solider, a Jesuit and a Jew, a French spy and a British ambassador- Palgrave was a man of contradi

Eating Dirt in Venezuela - Alexander von Humboldt Geographer, geologist, naturalist, anthropologist, physician and philosopher, Baron von Humboldt brought to ex

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 penetrating sub-Saharan Afr

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