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Origins of a Journey: History's Greatest Adventures Marked by Ambition, Necessity, and Madness
Feed the adventurer in you with Origins of a Journey, more than 120 stories of history's most famous travellers and their finest adventures. Inside each of us lives an explorer who yearns to visit the great unknown. Feed the adventurer in you with Origins of a Journey, more than 120 stories of history's most famous travelers and their finest adventures. These are the tales behind the history's bravest pioneers, bringing you from the ocean's black depths to the top of Mount Everest. Harriet Tubman ferries fugitive slaves along the Underground Railroad--not once, not twice, but 19 times. Teddy Roosevelt risks life, limb, and sanity as he charts the Amazon's River of Doubt. Buoyed by the voice of God, Joan of Arc travels to Vaucouleurs to petition Charles for a chance to fight for France. Charles Darwin notices several different finch species while touring the Galápagos Islands, fundamentally changing how we understand life. Spanning from 500 BC to today, Origins of a Journey teaches us that there is always value in an adventure, no matter how small--or doomed--it may be.
- GenresHistoryTravelNonfiction
320 pages, Hardcover
Published September 4, 2018
9 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 1, 2021
This was a mostly enjoyable read about an eclectic group of selected adventurers. It is popular history written in post-modern style, hence the root of those few issues I find in the selection of characters and their description. As with any lists, who is on and who is not generates plenty of discussion and room for disagreement. The author provides criteria for selection yet some characters fall below the standard the author sets for himself, especially those who did not go on a journey, which is the theme of the book. This is an obvious attempt at inclusion above substance. There is some exaggeration in characterization of individuals, their accomplishments and their faults, without any solid evidence to support what amounts to the author’s opinion. This demonstrates either an attempt to gain popular approval to sell more books or to further the hype of Baizou, which is not helpful.
July 9, 2021
Origins of a Journey: History's Greatest Adventures Marked By Ambition, Necessity, and Madness by Daniel Grogan offers some intriguing little minibiographies of some well known and some less well known historical (and a handful of contemporary) figures. When I say mini I mean that each is give or take two pages long. Some of those that I wasn't already familiar with definitely made me want to learn more. For me the strangest aspect of this books is how it's organized. It's organized by how they traveled: In the Air, On Wheels (Cars, Bikes, Trains), On Foot (Human or Horse), By Sea (and River), and By Any Means Necessary. After that it seems pretty random, not alphabetically by name, or in chronological order either. However, there are two that are back to back in the On Foot category that seemed to me to be a stroke of genius - Aron Ralston (of 127 Hours fame) followed immediately by George Donner (of the Donner Party).
July 13, 2021
A collection of short stories about 100 explorers and adventurers. Each entry is about two pages long and rather formulaic in nature. A cheesy, paragraph long intro, a few facts about them and some commentary on their impact. Grogan has a good variety in people. He covers well known figures from history, like Marco Polo and Magellan, but also includes many lesser known adventurers and modern figures as well. I'm a history teacher, and I hadn't heard of about half of the people in the book.
This book should be treated as a bathroom read. Its entries are short and repetitive, so it doesn't make for good extended time reading. I don't feel like I learned a lot from reading this book itself, but the stories he wrote did expose me to the lives of some pretty amazing people whose lives I did additional research on.
This book should be treated as a bathroom read. Its entries are short and repetitive, so it doesn't make for good extended time reading. I don't feel like I learned a lot from reading this book itself, but the stories he wrote did expose me to the lives of some pretty amazing people whose lives I did additional research on.
February 9, 2022
A small book in size and volume but large in content. The book contains brief narratives of 131 individuals who have the distinction of having achieved notoriety as a result of undertaking some type of a journey, whether by land, sea, air or a combination of routes. The book contained not only those individuals well known for their exploration(s), like Christopher Columbus, Lewis Merriweather, Marco Polo, Amelia Earhart and Neil Armstrong, to name a few, but quite a number of lesser known travelers: There’s Valentina Tereshkova - the first woman in space (1963); Annie Londonderry - the first woman to travel around the world on a bicycle (1894 - 1895); Yuichiro Maura - at 80, the oldest man to climb Mt. Everest (2013); Juan Garrido - the first person (European) to plant wheat on the American continent (@1508). Though I was already familiar with quite a number of the explorers/travelers included in the book, even with those the author included plenty of information about them that was new to me. In addition, I found it very fascinating reading about the achievements of those travelers/explorers that were previously unknown to me.
The narrative for each individual is only about two pages long which is just enough to introduce the reader to the noted explorer and to present a brief synopsis of the explorer’s life and of their notable achievement/accomplishment connected to their travels. The entries are just perfect for those times when one has a few spare moments and would like to fill those times with quality reading on an interesting subject but does not want to commit to a more involved and longer read.
There appeared to be no apparent criteria for an individual’s inclusion in the book, as I question the author’s choices of more than a few entries. Additionally, I can think of quite a number of other candidates ideal for inclusion in this book that were not included, or that were only mentioned briefly within another’s narrative, so maybe the author may be planning to compile another volume. If so I would gladly join in once again with those explorers and adventurers traversing the land, the waters and the air.
The narrative for each individual is only about two pages long which is just enough to introduce the reader to the noted explorer and to present a brief synopsis of the explorer’s life and of their notable achievement/accomplishment connected to their travels. The entries are just perfect for those times when one has a few spare moments and would like to fill those times with quality reading on an interesting subject but does not want to commit to a more involved and longer read.
There appeared to be no apparent criteria for an individual’s inclusion in the book, as I question the author’s choices of more than a few entries. Additionally, I can think of quite a number of other candidates ideal for inclusion in this book that were not included, or that were only mentioned briefly within another’s narrative, so maybe the author may be planning to compile another volume. If so I would gladly join in once again with those explorers and adventurers traversing the land, the waters and the air.
June 16, 2025
Fully acknowledging the explorers that might or might not have actually explored and the ones that were awful people, along with the ones you know and love and the ones you meet for the first time, I’d call this book a good place to start, a spark for your curiosity to learn more about the ones that count.
January 22, 2019
Interesting book. Reading about, these various adventurers was quite motivating. In each little story there was enough detail to give a good flavor of the adventurer and their story, but overwhelming with the details.
September 3, 2019
This book's a curious series of micro-biographies (usually about 2 short pages) written in a sort of Reader's Digest style. Some piqued my curiosity about people I hadn't heard of before.
July 13, 2021
The pace was perfect for my short attention span, but really, it kept my attention through the whole book! My favorite story was of Ernest Shackleton.
November 1, 2021
More esoteric than origins of a Song or Story, but still worthwhile
February 19, 2022
Fascinating and full of wonderment. A truly enjoyable read!
February 11, 2021
This book’s full title is Origins of a Journey: History’s Greatest Adventures Marked by Ambition, Necessity and Madness. This is great little book as it mentioned all sorts of travelers, ones you have heard of ones you have not. All the entries and quite short, so if you like to read more you can go the Works Cited section to see what more you can read on your adventurer. And, of course, there is a lot more information online. Below are some of the interesting people I met in this book.
I had never heard of Fanny Bullock Workman before and she sounded quite interesting. She has a Wikipedia page here. The entry is much longer than the entry in this book. An article in the Harvard Magazine is here. Googling her name brings up all sorts of entries for this remarkable woman.
Another interesting person was Bessie Coleman. She wanted to be an aviator despite both gender and racial discrimination at that time against about her being an aviator. She was lucky to get help but she was also a strong and determined women. Here is a biography of her. She is also has a Wikipedia page. Also, see a video on Bessie Coleman. She is another great role model.
Osa and Martin Johnson were adventurers and photographers. See their Wikipedia Page. There are photographs of their adventures online. After Martin’s death, Osa went on to be a famous photographer. There is an entry on her in Women Film Pioneers Project. Osa Johnson wrote a couple of books, including I Married Adventure with reviews on Good Reads. There is a 1929 film on them. There is also an old film on Osa Johnson.
One adventurer I had always been fascinated by is Herodotus. You cannot read history without coming across his name. He is also in Wikipedia. He is talked about in the Ancient History Encyclopedia. He is called the The Father of History. There is a cute video online. He wrote books and books were written about him.
I had never heard of Fanny Bullock Workman before and she sounded quite interesting. She has a Wikipedia page here. The entry is much longer than the entry in this book. An article in the Harvard Magazine is here. Googling her name brings up all sorts of entries for this remarkable woman.
Another interesting person was Bessie Coleman. She wanted to be an aviator despite both gender and racial discrimination at that time against about her being an aviator. She was lucky to get help but she was also a strong and determined women. Here is a biography of her. She is also has a Wikipedia page. Also, see a video on Bessie Coleman. She is another great role model.
Osa and Martin Johnson were adventurers and photographers. See their Wikipedia Page. There are photographs of their adventures online. After Martin’s death, Osa went on to be a famous photographer. There is an entry on her in Women Film Pioneers Project. Osa Johnson wrote a couple of books, including I Married Adventure with reviews on Good Reads. There is a 1929 film on them. There is also an old film on Osa Johnson.
One adventurer I had always been fascinated by is Herodotus. You cannot read history without coming across his name. He is also in Wikipedia. He is talked about in the Ancient History Encyclopedia. He is called the The Father of History. There is a cute video online. He wrote books and books were written about him.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews