Customer Reviews

The Explorers: From the Ancient World to the Present

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This over-sized book surprised me.

I was expecting a book with a lot of pictures, but without a lot of great writing... I couldn't have been anymore wrong.

The author does more than simply state historical facts, he goes into detail of exactly the explorations were so dangerous, then the author gives his analysis of why some expeditions succeeded where others failed. The pictures are great. They help illuminate the story and help provide the context for the events.

The content of the book is very good, however it's very broad and there's a lot of big names that weren't covered. I was surprised that their wasn't any mention of McKinley, Ponce de Leon, of Amerigo Vespucci, of Drake, and many others. Definitely, more time could have been spent covering Antartica, or explained the controversy concerning Perry arriving at the North Pole. And I was upset that the book doesn't state anything about the 14 year old Eskimo wife that Perry took, even though he was already married with children in Maine.

However, the big issue I have with the book is the size. At 15 inches long, it doesn't fit very well on a book shelf.

This beautifully and intelligibly formatted oversized book surveys the adventurous from the earliest hominids to the astronauts, with 640 photographs, including 90 maps.

An anecdotal text may encourage interested readers to more detailed accounts (a bibliography lists sources by chapter), and the many illustrations portray the people, art and conveyances involved in voyages of Alexander the Great, the Phoenicians, the Vikings, Marco Polo and more. There is a lengthy section on Columbus and subsequent explorers of the New World followed by the great explorers of Africa and the various races to the poles.

A breathtaking panorama of art makes this book a stand-out.

Mr. Paolo Novaresio's book "The Explorers" is of no academic value, unfortunately his book has lots to desire for when it comes to academic history. It leaves me no doubt that the author lacks a graduate level academic degree and research tactics. My suspicions leave me to believe that he only has an education degree and not an academic one, and is trying very hard to navigate in the academia world without any success. In Paolo's book the explorers he barely mentioned the Spanish and Portuguese explorer(and when he does he propagate the 'Black Legend') of which out number by far the English and Dutch Explorers. And when it comes to the ancient world explorers all I could say is that a secondary private school student could do much better research work than Paolo Novaresio.