Scientific Exploration and Expeditions: From the Age of Discovery to the Twenty-first Century

Scientific Exploration and Expeditions: From the Age of Discovery to the Twenty-first Century by Neil A. Hamilton (Editor) Hardcover: 361 pages Published: August 31, 2010 ISBN-10: 0765680769 ISBN-13: 978-0765680761 This two-volume set, aimed at middle-school students, provides information on explorers and scientists, as well as their expeditions and investigations, in eighty articles. Beginning with the "Age of Discovery" (that is, approximately 1420, the time of Prince Henry the Navigator), this set summarizes the most important discoveries in fields from polar exploration and paleontology to African explorers, archeology, and anthropology, covering events up to mid-2009. Both important expeditions and essential discoveries by scientists such as Charles Darwin appear, and explorations on all seven continents are detailed. Other articles furnish surveys of related fields, such as maps and mapmaking, as well as space exploration. Additional overviews summarize the area explorations from the Amazon River to the Gobi Desert, while the major exploratory societies such as the National Geographic Society and the International Polar Year also have entries. Many lesser known people receive good coverage, such as Gertrude Bell (Middle East archeologist), Joseph Banks (botanist with Captain Cook), the Hanbury-Tenisons (ethnographers in Brazil and Indonesia), and Georg Schweinfurth (African explorer).