"The RGS Journeys of Discovery begins in the Golden Age of exploration with some of the earliest explorers from the Vikings to the early Chinese travellers, the discovery of the Americas by French and Spanish explorers and the eventual circumnavigation of the globe. The book is then divided into continents to detail later exploration of countries all over the world. Starting in the Americas and the brave pioneers who forged new routes into and beyond the frontiers, it moves on to exotic and remote parts of Asia, the wilds of deepest Africa, beautiful Pacific Islands, the hostile terrain of Australia and finally the frozen expanse of the Arctic and the Antarctic. Familiar explorers (Drake, Livingstone, Cook, Scott and Marco Polo) and those less familiar (Niccolo dei Conti, Armin Vambery, Nikolai Przhevalski, Paul du Chaillu and Friedrich Leichardt). Covering professional explorers, botanists hunting for undiscovered plants, missionaries spreading Christianity into unexplored regions, women, aristocratic and down-right eccentric explorers, the RGS Journeys of Discovery takes you to a world still waiting to be discovered. An exploration in itself, it is an essential experience for armchair and actual explorers both young and old."-- Provided by publisher.