The Explorers: Stories of Discovery and Adventure from the Australian Frontier

by Tim Flannery

Book Overview

A lively collection of extraordinary stories of adventure and discovery, The Explorers tells the epic saga of the conquest and settlement of Australia. Editor Tim Flannery selects sixty-seven accounts that convey the sense of wonder and discovery, along with the human dimensions of struggle and deprivation, which occurred in the exploration of the last continent to be fully mapped by Europeans. Beginning with the story of Dutch captain Willem Janz's...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802137199
• ISBN13: 9780802137197
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 2.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great Book

I got this as a gift for my boyfriend because he's really interested in Australia. Listening to him talk about it makes me want to read it too!

Great Book to Start Reading About Australian Explorers

This is an anthology of excerpts from Australian Explorers journals ranging from early sixteenth century European Explorers to Australians in the early 20th century. Flannery's introduction for each provides an excellent, concise biography and set up to each explorer's excerpt. In many of the excerpts, an explorer faces death and disaster. The most intriguing initially was Charles Sturt writing of his attempt to find the mythical lake in the center of Australia. He brings a boat, experiences weather so hot it bursts a thermometer his party carries, they suffer from extreme scurvy, and Sturt's desire to be the first to reach the center of Australia. The second explorer I read in this collection was Ernest Giles. His except focuses on an expedition with his assistant Gibson, who goes for help and manages to get lost, and then Giles slowly makes his way back to base camp. Reading The Explorers fascinated me enough that I wanted to read more about specific explorers like Giles, but also about Australian explorers in general.

Great read for travel

This book consists of brief excerpts from journals, letters and diaries of those foolish or brave enough to push beyond the known world along Australia's seaboards. These explorers demonstrated unfathomable foolishness, unquenchable curiosity, bullheaded ethnocentricity, and, in too few cases, a passion for discovery for its own sake. As a reader you will be horrified, entertained, and enlightened by their adventures and misadventures.I just returned from a trip to Australia and took this book along with me to read. It was perfect for a visitor with little knowledge of Australian history beyond Hughes' "Fatal Shore" (another great read).

Fabulous tales of fortitude

What possesses a person to set off into the trackless wastes of Australia, with the almost certain knowledge that death lies waiting to welcome them into his scrawny arms? Reading this book gives you some of the answers and some of the idea of the pain and suffering undergone by these explorers (and in some cases the hapless Aborigines coerced into seeking water).There are some amazingly good writers within these pages, quite unexpected when you consider that many of them were ex-convicts or self-taught (and comparing them to some contemporary American explorers); there are some delightful descriptive passages and the occasional bout of whimsy, especially the anecdote of how 'Rocket' got his name - I was in hoots! An excellent read, which encouraged me to order several old copies of explorers' accounts. Thoroughly recommended!

Terra Incognita to the Dead Heart

Look at a map of Australia. The interior of the continent will be marked with rivers, lakes and localities. But if you go there the rivers will be dry, the lakes just salt and the localities just a handfull of people. This collection of first impressions by the first Europeans to see this wide brown land reveals their awe at the beauty and terror of the alien and essentially empty landscape.Drawn from journals, diaries and archives, these pieces convey the struggle for survival of Europeans in an environment where they were physically and culturally at a loss. The descriptions of early contacts with Aboriginal Australians written by the explorers themselves contain valuable insights into attitudes which informed the initial gropings for understanding across a vast cultural divide. As such they provide a sobering backdrop to inform us of the factual, cultural and emotional origins of the reconciliation movement in Australia.Flannery lets the pieces speak for themselves with minimal introductions to set the scene. The result is a readable and moving story, and good history at the same time.