Times Picture Collection Explorers

The Times Picture Collection Explorers is a stunning document of the limits of human courage and endurance. Featuring fascinating archival photography of some of the world’s most breathtaking places and hardiest explorers, this book is a wonderful addition to the Times Picture Collection series. Examining each of the terrains which have challenged these intrepid travellers – Ice and Snow, Peaks, Jungle, Desert, Sea and Underworlds – The Times Explorers provides a complete chronological and geographical overview of exploration since the late 19th century. From Franklin’s fatal expedition to the North-West Passage in the 1840s to Amundsen’s triumphant journey to the South Pole in 1911 (and his rival, Scott’s, equally fatal attempt), the book covers the triumphs and disasters of polar exploration. The quest to conquer the highest peaks, too, is followed, from the pioneers of mountaineering in the Alps in the 19th century, such as Whymper and Mummery, on to the successful conquest of Everest in 1953 by Hillary and Tenzing. The expeditions to the world’s last uncharted jungles, seas and deserts by explorers such as Hedin, Livingstone, Stanley, Thesiger, Heyerdahl and Freya Stark, complete the account of the world’s major explorers and expeditions and their achievements. Illustrated with rare photos from the archives of The Times, many of them unseen for decades, the book is a compelling testament to the adventurers who sought to push back the bounds of human exploration and to penetrate the world's most harsh and threatening environments.