Customer Reviews

The Explorers of South America

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It's a shame that every continent does not have a corresponding book on the history of it's exploration. There is an "Explorers of North America" by John Brebner, unfortunately long out of print which seems to have been the inspiration for this book as the author states in the preface. And there is a fine "Atlas of North American Exploration" available thru Amazon. And there are several books on the explorers and the history of exploration of Africa, some of them available by publishers of on demand computer generated reprinted books most of whom I do not trust the quality of. An exception is Elibron [Adamant Media Corp.], who does a fine job on their reprints, they do have available a fine volume of an 18th cent. re-print on the exploration of Africa, unfortunately I cannot remember the name or author of this book [you can search Elibron on the internet perhaps]. But to my knowledge there is nothing available on the history of the exploration of Asia, Australia or the Indonesian Archipelago. Of course there are several works available on Oceanic exploration, of Columbus, Magellan and the like.

But let's get back to where we belong. This volume covers all periods of the exploration of the vast continent of South America, from the oceanic explorers, then the conquistadors, post conquest era, thru the age of the scientists and naturalists and concludes with the 20th cent. explorers such as Rondon and Theodore Roosevelt. If one wishes to bring himself up to date then read "One River" by Wade Davis which covers the explorations of Richard Evans Schultes , perhaps the last great explorer of that continent. As the other reviewer of this book has noted this work could have easily have been expanded to two volumes. But we must give credit where credit is due especially considering the massive amount of research the author had to endure. I have noted some minor errors such as wrong dates on some of the expedition routes on the maps. Otherwise than this, this book is a must addition in the library of every serious student of the history of exploration.

This is an ample 400-page history of the many complex explorations south of Panama 1492-1933 (from Columbus to Fawcett), showing how very difficult and dangerous that ongoing task has been--ongoing, because large areas of South America remain unexplored, due to the rugged impenetrability of many mountain and jungle regions. With a full bibliography for further research, one only wishes the book were twice as long, with more extensive quotations from the sources, and with better maps instead of the less-interesting portraits of selected explorers.