Cranston Public Library

An irresistible blend of history, myth, and misadventure, A Voyage Long and Strange captures the wonder and drama of first contact. Vikings, conquistadors, French voyageurs--these and many others roamed an unknown continent in quest of grapes, gold, converts, even a cure for syphilis. Though most failed, their remarkable exploits left an enduring mark on the land and people encountered by late-arriving English settlers.--From publisher description....

Describes the journeys of the world's explorers from the first men who traveled beyond the then-known world to the scientific explorations of today.

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,...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the definitive book on Lewis and Clark's exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure stories of all time.
In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River to the Rockies, over the mountains,...

"Explorer is the story of what first led Benedict Allen to head for the farthest reaches of our planet - at a time when there were still valleys and ranges known only to the remote communities who inhabited them. It is also the story of why, thirty years later, he is still exploring. It's the story of a journey back to a clouded mountain in New Guinea to find a man called Korsai who had once been a friend, and to fulfil a promise made as young men....

"In 1859, ex-East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall after sustaining an injury that almost cost him his leg. When the India Office recruits Merrick for an expedition to fetch quinine--essential for the treatment of malaria--from deep within Peru, he knows it's a terrible idea. Nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who's made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is desperate to escape the strange...

Offers insight into the historical events that prompted Columbus' efforts to establish new trade routes to the Indies, his struggles to obtain financial support for his voyages, and the important discoveries that caused him to become known as the "Great Admiral of the Seas."

"From the discovery of a strange parchment in an old book to the fantastic descent through a dormant volcano into a subterranean world of danger and beauty, A Journey to the Center of the Earth is as wonderfully entertaining today as when it was first published. One of Jules Verne's finest novels, its unique combination of "hard" science and vivid imagination helped establish this brilliant Frenchman as the father of modern science fiction. A high-tension...