Encyclopedia of Exploration

Facts On File Library Of World History

by Carl Waldman

Volume 1, The Explorers, presents more than 950 biographical entries that begin with birth and death dates, nationality, occupations, and areas of the world explored, followed by an account of the subject's exploration activities. Among the explorers who are covered are the well known, such as Neil Armstrong, Ferdinand Magellan, and Ernest Shackleton, but also the less familiar, such as Ahmad Ibn Fadlan (fl. 920s), whose record of his diplomatic mission from Baghdad to Russia and eastern Europe is the earliest account of that region in pre-Christian times, and Koncordie Dietrich (1821-91), a German naturalist whose travels through the Australian outback resulted in the largest collection of flora and fauna assembled by a woman. Entries range from two or three paragraphs to four pages in length and are accompanied by 144 illustrations and photographs. Appendixes list explorers by occupation, by region of activity, by nationality or sponsoring country, and in chronological order by birth date.

Volume 2, Places, Technologies, and Cultural Trends, has more than 260 A-Z entries on such topics as Aerial photography, Circumnavigation of the world, Drift ice, Fur trade, Native peoples and exploration, Orinoco River, Virginia Company, and Women explorers. Entries range in length from 2 paragraphs to more than 10 pages and are accompanied by 67 photographs and illustrations and 62 maps. An appendix contains maps by region; by ancient routes in the Mediterranean, Europe, and Asia; by new water routes; and by the interior in Asia, the Americas, the Pacific Ocean and Australia, Africa, the Arctic, and the Antarctic. The volume concludes with a very thorough chronology of exploration, a further reading list for the set, a list of volume 2 entries by subject, and a 35-page cumulative index for both volumes. In both volumes, capital letters are used in the text to designate terms that are also entry headings.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Carl Waldman is a freelance writer who divides his time between the streets of New York City and the hills of upstate New York. He is the author of a number of reference books on Native Americans, including Atlas of the North AmericanIndian, Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, and Biographical Dictionary of American Indian History to 1900. He co-authored other books on history and popular culture, including Encyclopedia of Exploration, Encyclopedia of European Peoples, The Art of Magic, Elvis Immortal, and Forever Sinatra. He also has cowritten several screenplays, including an episode of Miami Vice for NBC and The Legend of Two Path, a drama about the Native American side of Raleigh’s Lost Colony, shown at Festival Park on Roanoke Island in North Carolina. His hobbies include music and he has played in a number of bands and has worked with young people in music workshops. Streetscape is his first mystery.