Round About the Earth: Circumnavigation from Magellan to Orbit

Chaplin, Joyce E.

ISBN 10: 1416596194 / ISBN 13: 9781416596196

Edité par Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 2012

A propos de cet article

535 pp. Tightly bound. Corners not bumped. Text is free of markings. Very good dust jacket. Jacket not price clipped. PLEASE NOTE: This is a very clean EX-LIBRARY COPY. There are no call numbers on the spine of the book or on the spine of the dust jacket. There is no check-out pocket at the back of the book. No names or stamps on the page edges. There is some faint tape residue on the boards. There are three neat stamps on the front end paper: The name of the library, a withdrawn stamp and the date.

N° de réf. du vendeur 092693

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Round About the Earth: Circumnavigation from Magellan to Orbit
• Éditeur: Simon & Schuster, New York, NY
• Date de parution: 2012
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 1416596194
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9781416596196
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: 1st Edition
• Impression: 1st Printing
• État de l'article: Good
• État de la jaquette: Good Dust Jacket

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

With illustrations and maps, a witty and erudite account of the history of circumnavigation and how it has influenced the way we think about the Earth and ourselves. In the first complete account, Joyce Chaplin tells of the outrageous ambitions that inspired men and women to take on the whole planet.

In this first full history of around-the-world travel, Joyce E. Chaplin brilliantly tells the story of circumnavigation. Round About the Earth is a witty, erudite, and colorful account of the outrageous ambitions that have inspired men and women to circle the entire planet.

For almost five hundred years, human beings have been finding ways to circle the Earth—by sail, steam, or liquid fuel; by cycling, driving, flying, going into orbit, even by using their own bodily power. The story begins with the first centuries of circumnavigation, when few survived the attempt: in 1519, Ferdinand Magellan left Spain with five ships and 270 men, but only one ship and thirty-five men returned, not including Magellan, who died in the Philippines. Starting with these dangerous voyages, Joyce Chaplin takes us on a trip of our own as we travel with Francis Drake, William Dampier, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, and James Cook.

Eventually sea travel grew much safer and passengers came on board. The most famous was Charles Darwin, but some intrepid women became circumnavigators too—a Lady Brassey, for example. Circumnavigation became a fad, as captured in Jules Verne’s classic novel, Around the World in Eighty Days.

Once continental railroads were built, circumnavigators could traverse sea and land. Newspapers sponsored racing contests, and people sought ways to distinguish themselves—by bicycling around the world, for instance, or by sailing solo.

Steamships turned round-the-world travel into a luxurious experience, as with the tours of Thomas Cook & Son. Famous authors wrote up their adventures, including Mark Twain and Jack London and Elizabeth Jane Cochrane (better known as Nellie Bly). Finally humans took to the skies to circle the globe in airplanes. Not much later, Sputnik, Gagarin, and Glenn pioneered a new kind of circumnavigation— in orbit.

Through it all, the desire to take on the planet has tested the courage and capacity of the bold men and women who took up the challenge. Their exploits show us why we think of the Earth as home. Round About the Earth is itself a thrilling adventure.

À propos de l'auteur

Joyce E. Chaplin is the James Duncan Phillips Professor of History at Harvard University. She is the author of four previous books of nonfiction, including The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius (2006), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Science and Technology Category), and winner of the Annibel Jenkins Prize of American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.