Raymond John Howgego
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EXPLORATION Complete Set
To 1800
1800 to 1850
1850 to 1940: Oceans, Islands and Polar Regions
1850 to 1940: Continental Exploration
The vast scope of the Encyclopedia of Exploration makes it a work unlike any other in its combination of historical, biographical and bibliographical data. It includes a catalogue of all known expeditions, voyages and travels from the earliest times to the year 1940, as well as biographical information of the travellers themselves, which places them in their historical context. Over fifteen years in the making, the Encyclopedia of Exploration has been a massive undertaking. The four volumes include over 4500 articles in approximately 3660 pages, some 3.7 million words. Within the text itself there are many thousands of cross-references between articles, and the work is made even more accessible through extensive bibliographical citations to accompany the articles. Please note that there is also a dedicated website for the book at www.explorersencyclopedia.com. There is more information about the book on the site, including full lists of articles, persons referred to in the text, and all ships' names that occur in the book. www.explorersencyclopedia.com is a permanent website devoted to the book, where any additions, corrections or other suggestions are welcomed. They can be submitted via the website, and all contributions will be moderated by Ray Howgego. Periodically updates will be issued as a single printable document which can be freely downloaded.
4 Volumes Quarto format (280 x 210 mm.), bound in cloth with a colour dustjacket.
Now Available
Australian: $999 (Approx. US $914, Euro €669)
ISBN 9781875567447
About the Book
The vast scope of the Encyclopedia of Exploration makes it a work unlike any other in its combination of historical, biographical and bibliographical data. It includes a catalogue of all known expeditions, voyages and travels from the earliest times to the year 1940, as well as biographical information of the travellers themselves, which places them in their historical context. The Encyclopedia of Exploration has been a massive undertaking. The four volumes include over 4500 articles in approximately 3660 pages, some 3.7 million words. Within the text itself there are many thousands of cross-references between articles, and the work is made even more accessible through extensive bibliographical citations to accompany the articles.
About the Author
Raymond Howgego is an independent researcher, scholar and traveller, who has been researching the history of exploration for much of his adult life. His travels have followed in the footsteps of the explorers to most parts of the world - Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, West Africa, South America, the Cape Verde Islands, Uganda and Ethiopia; and more recently overland from China to Tibet and across the length and breadth of Australia. His numerous excursions in search of local sources of information have afforded the opportunity to add to a lifetime's accumulation of travel literature. He has recently been appointed to the Council of the Hakluyt Society. Brian Turner noted in a recent article on the Encyclopedia that 'The soft-spoken physicist turned travel-scholar speaks and speed-reads every European language (except Basque and Finnish) plus Arabic, and has translated into English many travel narratives himself. Howgego is also a great serial traveller; he has stood at the same spot as Speke at the source of the Nile, sailed through the Straits of Magellan, and followed the tracks of the Conquistadors through Bolivia. In 1994 Howgego and his companions were the first Europeans to cross the Torugart Pass from Kyrgyzstan into China since the Russian Revolution. Minutes after his jeep had crossed an unstable section of Pakistan's precipitous Karakoram Highway, the road collapsed into the Indus. Ray has also voyaged down most of the world's great rivers, including the Niger in flood, when neither bank was visible. His favourite destination? "Kashgar is my centre of the universe". And favourite country? "Iran; the Zoroastrian monasteries of central Iran fascinate me and the Islamic architecture of Esfahan is heart-stoppingly beautiful"'.