Off the Map: Tales of Endurance and Exploration [Hardcover]

Fergus Fleming (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 4, 2005

On John Franklin’s 1820 expedition to find the North-West Passage, Michel Teroahaute cannibalized two team members and was preparing a third when he was caught and killed. When Rene la Salle set off for the Mississippi Delta in 1684, he missed the target by five hundred miles, but on landing immediately built a prison for those who fell asleep on watch. Consummate storyteller Fergus Fleming brings together these and forty-three other gripping stories of adventure and endeavor. Off the Map recounts episodes both classic and forgotten: the "classics" are brought to life in more vivid colors than ever before; the lesser known stories offer accounts of feats that are no less heroic or extraordinary but have long lain hidden in the undergrowth of history. From the Renaissance golden age of Columbus, da Gama, and Magellan to the twentieth-century heroics of polar explorers such as Peary, Scott, and Amundsen, this is an unforgettable journey into the annals of adventure.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

No activity embraces risk like exploration. Success means glory and wealth; failure most likely entails an undocumented demise thousands of miles from home. This sturdy work recounts the memorable circumstances of history's greatest journeys of discovery. Former Time-Life Books editor Fleming (Killing Dragons) has mastered the craft of imparting huge swaths of information in an accessible way. Thematically(and sensibly) divided into three sections covering "Reconnaissance," "Inquiry" and "Endeavour," the book's 45 accounts lie at the intersection of individual obsessiveness and collective, often imperial, ambition. Whether elaborating on von Humboldt's accidental exploitation of guano (bird manure fertilizer), Henry Hudson's encounter with a mermaid or the French search for a Saharan field of emeralds, Fleming's writing is informative and vivid, never stinting on such basic human drives as greed, glory and geopolitical domination. As the book inexorably moves from 1271 (Marco Polo) to 1928 (Umberto Mobile, pioneering North Pole pilot), the narratives inevitably shift from such weighty matters as the modern European explorations of China, North America, India and Brazil to geographical poles and inaccessible peaks. Almost comprehensive enough to serve as a reference, this densely packed tome supplies a bewildering wealth of information about some of humanity's most compelling adventures. B&w photos, maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Fleming presents 45 narratives of unparalleled achievements in the long history of exploration, dividing his the book into three eras--the age of reconnaissance, the age of inquiry, the age of endeavor--and beginning each chapter with an essay. Among the explorers are such famous names as Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Henry Hudson, Lewis and Clark, W. E. Parry, Stanley and Livingstone, Peary and Cook, Scott and Amundsen, and Ernest Shackleton. Less-known adventurers include Ibn Battuta, who traveled across North Africa to the Middle East; Rene La Salle, who helped colonize the American wilderness; John Ross, who spent four years in the Arctic; Robert Burke and William Wills, who crossed the Australian continent; George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, who climbed Mount Everest (and did not survive); and Umberto Nobile, who flew over the North Pole in a dirigible. With 24 pages of black-and-white illustrations, the book will allow more-timid readers to experience achievements beyond their wildest dreams. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 560 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; First Edition edition (August 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871138999
• ISBN-13: 978-0871138996
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #287,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read, October 9, 2005

By 

Math Prof - See all my reviews

This review is from: Off the Map: Tales of Endurance and Exploration (Hardcover)

Hard to believe, but I couldn't put this book down! It consists of a number of vignettes, each a story of exploration. The majority seem to involve polar exploration - Northwest Passage and all that - with a fair number set in Africa, as well. Though I've read whole books on a few of these stories, in most cases a book might be too much, especially for those of us with too many books on the to-read list. The writing is excellent. (I must say, though, that I was disappointed when I read that Stanley, rather than searching all over the heart of Africa, found Livingstone in the first place that he looked!)

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Nice Way to Learn History, November 5, 2005

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Off the Map: Tales of Endurance and Exploration (Hardcover)

Fergus Fleming is a "narrative historian." "I can't conceive of writing it any other way," the recently deceased Shelby Foote once said. "Narrative history is the kind that comes closest to telling the truth. You can never get to the truth, but that's your goal."

As a narrative historian, Mr. Fleming writes of history almost as he would a novel. He doesn't footnote every fact, he doesn't quote every statement anyone said. He writes the history as a story, an interesting story. In the bibliography at the back he says, "it seems redundant to itemize every letter, every diary, every scrap of archive material. The following is a list of books that I have found most directly helpful."

From these books, and probably a lifetime of accumulated historical knowledge, Mr. Fleming tells the tale here of the discoverers who ventured "Off the Map." The tales range from the time of the Renaissance through the 1920's when the intenal combusion engine changed all the rules. He covers the famous like Marco Polo, Columbus, Cook, Lewis and Clark. He also covers a series of others that may have escaped your attention in the past such as Ibn Battuta, Umberto Nobile, and Carl Weyprecht.

Entertaining reading and even hearing the old stories retold is enjoyable in Mr. Fleming's writing style.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps "An encyclopedia of exploration" would be a better title, December 21, 2005

By 

Camper English "Author of Party Like a Rock S... (san francisco, ca United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Off the Map: Tales of Endurance and Exploration (Hardcover)

I expected this book to be the advertised "tales" of exploration, but I think that doesn't do justice to the depth of detail and research in the content. Rather than describe how far someone went and how cold it was there, he excerpts explorers' journals and gives a feel for the degree of pain and suffering of the journey, as well as what the exploration did or did not accomplish in scientific or imperialistic terms. In one memorable Antarctic exploration chapter, for example, Fleming relates how the explorer's skin peeled off in a truly horrific manner (you can't even imagine) as related in his journals. Fleming then goes on to theorize on the cause of the condition (eating his sled dog's liver) and why this did not happen to other adventurers in the Antarctic. There are dozens and dozens of individual stories in this book, and I'm amazed at how many of the tiny details are still imprinted in my brain. They'll make great campfire stories sometime.

On the other hand, "encyclopedia" doesn't sound like "fun read," and this book truly is. I'd highly recommend it to those who enjoy richly detailed yet thoroughly engaging stories of great adventure, risk, and near (or often, total) death.