Author: John KeayPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Explorers
Languages : en
Pages : 571
Book Description
Where men and mountains meet -- The Gilgit game.
Explorers of the Western Himalayas, 1820-1895
Author: John KeayPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Explorers
Languages : en
Pages : 571
Book Description
Where men and mountains meet -- The Gilgit game.
The Great Explorers
Author: Robin Hanbury-TenisonPublisher: Thames & Hudson
ISBN: 0500774315
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 342
Book Description
Penetrating biographies written by a group of distinguished travel writers, broadcasters, and historians reveal the lives, motives, and passions of forty major explorers in history. It has always been mankind’s gift, or curse, to be inquisitive, and through the ages people have been driven to explore the limits of the worlds known to them—and beyond. Here are the stories of forty of the world’s greatest explorers from Europe, America, Asia, and Australia. These are men and women who changed our perception of the world through their courageous adventures. Organized thematically, the book opens with the oceanic journeys of five hundred years ago, when the great era of recorded exploration began. The following sections look at The Land, Rivers, Polar Ice, Deserts, Life on Earth, and New Frontiers. Many of these explorers recounted their journeys in vivid firsthand accounts; others were superb artists or photographers. The book features quotes from their journals and reports, and it is illustrated with paintings, photographs, engravings, and maps, so that we can experience their adventures through their own eyes and in their own words. Featured explorers include: Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, James Cook, Lewis and Clark, Richard Burton, Samuel de Champlain, David Livingstone, Roald Amundsen, Gertrude Bell, Alexander von Humboldt, Yuri Gagarin, and Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
Himalaya
Author: Philip ParkerPublisher: Anova Books
ISBN: 1844862380
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 673
Book Description
At some 1500 miles long and 250 miles at its widest the Himalaya range is home to the fourteen greatest mountain peaks on the planet each of which towers over 8,000 metres. Celebrated by the region�s early ancient kingdoms, many of these peaks remain sacred in both the Hindu and Buddhist religions and have additionally inspired western explorers and adventurers for some 300 years. Himalaya examines the geographical origins of the region, its earliest peoples and the onward western discovery and exploration commencing with the Jesuits, progressing through myriad nineteenth century gentlemen surveyors, culminating in Edmund Hilary and Tensing Norgay�s ascent of Everest in 1953 and continuing to the present day with extreme mountaineers and adventure tourists. However the book does not solely deal with the attempts to summit the majestic Everest. Its broader brief, and chronological structure, allows the inclusion of narrative and journal extracts from the equally heroic pioneering ascents of Himalayan peaks including K2 (1954), Nanga Parbat (1953), Annapurna (1950), Kangchenjunga (1955), and Lhotse (1956) as well as subsequent new frontiers, peaks, routes and mountaineering techniques. The volume includes specially commissioned pieces where legendary climbers reflect on their intrepid experiences and heroism on the highest mountains on earth. These accounts are set beside stunning commissioned cartography, historical photographs, newly shot stills of ephemera and artifacts as well as the most recent Himalayan work from some of the world�s leading adventure photographers.
Britain and Tibet 1765-1947
Author: Julie G. MarshallPublisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415336475
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 658
Book Description
This bibliography is a record of British relations with Tibet in the period 1765 to 1947. As such it also involves British relations with Russia and China, and with the Himalayan states of Ladakh, Lahul and Spiti, Kumaon and Garhwal, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Assam, in so far as British policy towards these states was affected by her desire to establish relations with Tibet. It also covers a subject of some importance in contemporary diplomacy. It was the legacy of unresolved problems concerning Tibet and its borders, bequeathed to India by Britain in 1947, which led to border disputes and ultimately to war between India and China in 1962. These borders are still in dispute today. It also provides background information to Tibet's claims to independence, an issue of current importance. The work is divided into a number of sections and subsections, based on chronology, geography and events. The introductions to each of the sections provide a condensed and informative history of the period and place the books and article in their historical context. Most entries are also annotated. This work is therefore both a history and a bibliography of the subject, and provides a rapid entry into a complex area for scholars in the fields of international relations and military history as well as Asian history.
Stormcatcher
Author: Linda EketoftPublisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
ISBN: 154375807X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 213
Book Description
An Argentinian from Buenos Aires, Christian Pereira, sails in Antarctica. It is the end of February and other sailors are heading home as winter approaches the continent. One sleepless night he picks up a book that he has found in his attic at home. Browsing through the text about the Western Himalayas, his eyes get fixed on the mysterious death of a British explorer and spy who was sent out by the British to influence a commercial treaty by which the entire Central Asia would open for trade. He later identifies a connection between the man and his great grandfather. Knowing the truth turns into an obsession. The Antarctic landscape slowly starts to influence Christian. Sneaking into a research station in search for food one night, he accidently runs into Fyodor, an unpredictable Russian scientist with a mysterious past who forces Christian to give him a lift on his boat to complete his secret scientific study. This is only the beginning of a journey that turns out to be Christian’s biggest challenge yet. StormCatcher is a Thriller of a journey that leaves the reader breathless.
Mapping the Great Game
Author: Riaz DeanPublisher: Casemate
ISBN: 1612008151
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
The work of explorers, surveyors and spies in the race to conquer Southern Asia is vividly recounted in this history of British imperial cartography. In the 19th century, the British and Russian empires were engaged in bitter rivalry for the acquisition of Southern Asian. Although India was the ultimate prize, most of the intrigue and action took place along its northern frontier in Afghanistan, Turkestan and Tibet. Mapping the region and gaining knowledge of the enemy were crucial to the interests of both sides. The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India began in the 18th century with the aim of creating a detailed map of the subcontinent. Under the leadership of George Everest—whose name was later bestowed to the world’s tallest mountain—the it mapped the Great Arc running from the country’s southern tip to the Himalayas. Much of the work was done by Indian explorers known as Pundits. They were the first to reveal the mysteries of the forbidden city of Lhasa, and discover the true course of Tibet’s mighty Tsangpo River. These explorers performed essential information gathering for the British Empire and filled in large portions of the map of Asia. Their adventurous exploits are vividly recounted in Mapping the Great Game.
Northern Afghanistan
Author: Major C. E. YatePublisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443800899
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
The Joint Afghan Boundary Commission - an Anglo-Russian venture whose task it was to delineate the frontier between Northern Afghanistan and Russia’s Central Asian territories, scientifically and permanently, thus replacing the 1873 line drawn from vague and inaccurate maps - was to rendezvous at Sarakhs, on the modern border of Iran and Turkmenistan, in October 1884. Presented as a series of letters written at different times from the commission, and published in connected form, Yate’s Northern Afghanistan describes in detail the year-long progress of the commission. Included are valuable notes on Herat and its extant buildings, before the strategic destruction of a number of these for defensive purposes, together with descriptions of Mazar-i-Sharif, the Oxus, and the Hindu Kush mountains. This is a fascinating, first-hand account of Afghanistan’s political demarcation - many features of which, such as the Wakhan Corridor, remain with us today - and of travel through an area whose potential for destability persists to the present day. This edition maintains all the material from the original 1888 edition, including the plan of Balkh. Only the maps have been reduced in scale.
Empire
Author: Niall FergusonPublisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465013104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 572
Book Description
A bestselling historian shows how the British Empire created the modern world, in a book lauded as "a rattling good tale" (Wall Street Journal) and "popular history at its best" (Washington Post) The British Empire was the largest in all history: the nearest thing to global domination ever achieved. The world we know today is in large measure the product of Britain's Age of Empire. The global spread of capitalism, telecommunications, the English language, and institutions of representative government -- all these can be traced back to the extraordinary expansion of Britain's economy, population and culture from the seventeenth century until the mid-twentieth. On a vast and vividly colored canvas, Empire shows how the British Empire acted as midwife to modernity. Displaying the originality and rigor that have made Niall Ferguson one of the world's foremost historians, Empire is a dazzling tour de force -- a remarkable reappraisal of the prizes and pitfalls of global empire.
Cartographic Fictions
Author: Karen Lynnea PiperPublisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813530734
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
Maps are stories as much about us as about the landscape. They reveal changing perceptions of the natural world, as well as conflicts over the acquisition of territories. Cartographic Fictions looks at maps in relation to journals, correspondence, advertisements, and novels by authors such as Joseph Conrad and Michael Ondaatje. In her innovative study, Karen Piper follows the history of cartography through three stages: the establishment of the prime meridian, the development of aerial photography, and the emergence of satellite and computer mapping. Piper follows the cartographer's impulse to "leave the ground" as the desire to escape the racialized or gendered subject. With the distance that the aerial view provided, maps could then be produced "objectively," that is, devoid of "problematic" native interference. Piper attempts to bring back the dialogue of the "native informant," demonstrating how maps have historically constructed or betrayed anxieties about race. The book also attempts to bring back key areas of contact to the map between explorer/native and masculine/feminine definitions of space.
An End to Suffering
Author: Pankaj MishraPublisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429933631
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
An End to Suffering is a deeply original and provocative book about the Buddha's life and his influence throughout history, told in the form of the author's search to understand the Buddha's relevance in a world where class oppression and religious violence are rife, and where poverty and terrorism cast a long, constant shadow. Mishra describes his restless journeys into India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, among Islamists and the emerging Hindu middle class, looking for this most enigmatic of religious figures, exploring the myths and places of the Buddha's life, and discussing Western explorers' "discovery" of Buddhism in the nineteenth century. He also considers the impact of Buddhist ideas on such modern politicians as Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. As he reflects on his travels and on his own past, Mishra shows how the Buddha wrestled with problems of personal identity, alienation, and suffering in his own, no less bewildering, times. In the process Mishra discovers the living meaning of the Buddha's teaching, in the world and for himself. The result is the most three-dimensional, convincing book on the Buddha that we have.