"From the author of 1491--the best-selling study of the pre-Columbian Americas--a deeply engaging new history that explores the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs. More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed totally different suites of plants and animals. Columbus's voyages brought them back together--and marked the beginning...

A simple account of Christopher Columbus' first voyage to America.

Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a trading route to China, and his unexpected landfall in the Americas, is a watershed event in world history. Yet Columbus made three more voyages within the span of only a decade, each designed to demonstrate that he could sail to China within a matter of weeks and convert those he found there to Christianity. These later voyages were even more adventurous, violent, and ambiguous,...

What happened to the world's biggest treasure? Early Spanish explorers heard a story about El Dorado. It was a lost city in the Americas, made of gold. The explorers believed it was real--and they believed they could find it! Soon the story became a legend, and the legend changed the world. But the city of El Dorado has not been found ... yet.

Set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers, a story of courage and adventure brings to life the rivalry between two enemies-a decorated soldier and a young aristocrat/Army officer-as they set out to find the mysterious headwaters of the Nile River.

"The true, harrowing story of the ill-fated 1913 Canadian Arctic Expedition and the two men who came to define it. In the summer of 1913, the wooden-hulled brigantine Karluk departed Canada for the Arctic Ocean. At the helm was Captain Bob Bartlett, considered the world's greatest living ice navigator. The expedition's visionary leader was a flamboyant impresario named Vilhjalmur Stefansson hungry for fame. Just six weeks after the Karluk departed,...

Herbert Eugene Bolton, who was well-known for his books on the Southwest and Spanish Americas, here recounts in detail Francisco Vasquez de Coronado's sixteenth-century entrada to the North American frontier of the Spanish Empire. In retracing Coronado's route, Professor Bolton-with access to new information-was able to relive the experiences of the original exploration. Originally published in 1949, he brings fresh insight and profound knowledge...

Describes the epic journey undertaken by Douglas Mawson, who suffered starvation, the loss of his team, and a crippling foot injury as he resorted to crawling back to base camp during the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1913.