Exploration

Book excerpt: This clear, succinct, and elegant contribution to the Very Short Introduction series surveys the history of global exploration and assesses the motives, for good and ill, of those who undertook it. Stewart Weaver traces the history of exploration from the first explorers (including Polynesian and Micronesian peoples, the ancient Greeks, Marco Polo, and Ibn Battúta), to the European discover of America, the Enlightenment and exploration (focusing on James Cook), the race to the north and south poles, and finally twentieth-century space and deep sea exploration.