A Cultural History of Exploration

Examines exploration as a global phenomenon throughout human history, showing its meaning and impact for both the explorers and the explored.

What has driven humanity to expand across the globe? How was it achieved? And what has it meant to be on the receiving end - not the explorer but the explored?

In a work that spans more than 5,000 years, these questions are addressed by 40 experts, each contributing their overview of a theme applied to a period in history. Aided by a wide range of case material, they illustrate the meaning of exploration in a global context from antiquity to the present day. Individual volume editors ensure of the cohesion of the whole and, to make it as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in a single volume, or following a theme across history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the six.

The six volumes cover: 1. Antiquity; 2. The Middle Ages; 3. The Early Modern Age; 4. The Age of Expansion and Enlightenment; 5. The Industrial Age; 6. The Modern Age.

Themes (and chapter titles) are: technologies of exploration; motivations and methodologies for exploration; ideal and idealized explorer typologies; the explored and their explorations; verbalizing exploration; visualizing exploration; and authority, finance, and exploration.

The page extent for the set is approximately 1,500 pp.

Special introductory offer (valid up to 3 months after publication): £395 / $550 (full price: £440 / $610)

The Cultural Histories Series
A Cultural History of Exploration is part of the Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available both as printed hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, or as part of a fully searchable digital library, updated twice a year and available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access. . See www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com for further information or to access content.