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Throughout
our history (and before), our species has pushed back the
boundaries of what is known and discovered more about our
world and beyond. From voyaging to unknown lands and diving
into the deep sea to exploring space, we are finding out more
all the time. This book describes some of the most important
ones in a nutshell.
This
is the third in the “Little Book” series and tells
in brief but informative chapters the stories of many expeditions.
It is the sort of book to have on a coffee table as although
there are only black and white pictures and it is of a small
size; it is ideal for dipping into in odd moments. These succinct
accounts might inspire you to go and find out more about the
various voyages; it certainly caused me to do this in some
instances. The book is divided into five sections, encompassing
unknown lands, uncharted seas, ocean depths, space missions,
and best of all, adventures yet to come. The sections don’t
have indexes, but there is one at the back; personally, as
the articles are fairly brief and so interesting, I just enjoyed
reading it and wasn’t worried about not knowing what
was in each section. After all, it is a book about exploring
the unknown! From centuries past, read about the man whose
journeys which led him to work out a system for classifying
life, the explorer’s collection which formed the basis
of the British Museum, the amorous butterfly collector and
the first bathysphere divers. In our own time, marvel at the
explorers of Mexico’s Crystal Cave, Vietnam’s
giant cave system, and unmanned craft taking photographs of
Pluto. Discover which parts of the world still need exploring,
which is the highest unclimbed mountain and what planets might
support life with a tweak or two. I initially imagined that
the book would mostly contain accounts of well-known expeditions
such as Columbus and Cook, but many of the chapters describe
very new exploration or give insights into other aspects of
more famous adventures. Everest gets a chapter, but this is
about work being done to discover why some people are better
at high altitude than others, and America’s 15th century
explorer who gets a chapter is Vespucci. There is even one
about the Loch Ness Monster, but again not covering the history
of sightings but something quite different. It all makes for
fascinating reading, and I look forward to seeing the next
“Little Book.”
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