The story of exploration is the story of history's greatest adventures, resounding with tales of courage and of achievement in the face of impossible odds. It is a story that begins far back in the mists of time, and that even now is not complete. For, although little of the earth remains unknown, man is constantly seeking new worlds to conquer, or fresh deeds to dare.
This atlas tells the story of man's gradual discovery of his world. The form was chosen so that the route each pioneer followed could be plotted in detail; and the maps showing the explorers' journeys are augmented by others, picturing the world as it was thought to be in the time of the explorers, and showing political and geographical features of their day. The maps are linked and amplified by the text, which describes the discoverers, their motives, and their explorations into the unknown world.
In an introduction compiled posthumously from the writings of Sir Francis Chichester, one of the present century's greatest adventurers. Sir Francis describes the search for challenge and achievement that was the moving spirit of his life, and of the lives of many of the explorers who have helped to open up the world. Thereafter, first in chronological, then in geographical framework, the history of discovery unfolds. From the first wanderings of primitive men. and civilization's earliest recorded expeditions, it leads through the epic journeys of exploration to man's latest adventure—the space flights of the present century.