The story of the first contact between the Haida and other indigenous peoples of the Pacific North West with Europeans - and what came after. Told very powerfully in a graphic form that comb... read more
A brilliant narrative of the interconnected lives of two Renaissance Portuguese men whose travels to India and China unseated contemporary certainties. Dazzling.
Thorogood's version of 'up hill and down dale' takes him over cliffs and up volcanoes - all in the pursuit of pitcher plants, irises, orchids... Illustrated by the author.
There are those who swear he was a spy, others who insist he was too scatty or essentially lazy to be one. Whatever the truth, he was an exceptional linguist (Iranian, Afghan Persian, Arabic... read more
In the 1550s, a Venetian public servant produced three anonymous volumes of geographical data, some of it well known, some hitherto secret: Renaissance Wikileaks.
In 1930 a (very) young British explorer led a small team to explore the eastern coast of Greenland - an unknown expanse, mysterious even to the Inuits.
Plant-hunting did not die with Frank Kingdon-Ward in 1958: very important work continues, highly skilled, technical and complex, but brings little or no fame to this intrepid band. We hope t... read more
How the daughter of Babur, first Mughal Emperor, wrangled her way out of the harem (for a while) to travel around India, to Persia and beyond. Based on her own account.
Louis-Antoine de Bougainville and Pierre Magnol to Sir David Attenborough, via Lady Gaga... The author is, amongst other roles, the president of the Linnaean Society.