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The French entered the Pacific in the late 17th century, but the ocean remained largely a Spanish preserve until British navigators began to cross its vast expanse in the mid 1760s. France's concerns that Britain might establish its superiority in the area, meant they welcomed Louis de Bougainville's voyage of exploration undertaken in 1766-9. After handing over the colony he had established in the Falkland Islands to Spain, he sailed through the still relatively unknown Straits of Magellan into the poorly charted South Pacific. He made a number of discoveries in the south west, but was too late to discover Tahiti, where Samuel Wallis had preceded him by less than a year. Reports on Bougainv...
From Babel to Babble . . . Everyone is Speaking English In 2007, the English language passed the million-word mark. That shouldn't come as a surprise since over a billion Earthlings speak English (no one knows about other planets, but they probably speak it, too). That makes for a lot of word-coiners (neologists) out there. And where are all these new words coming from? Hollywood? Technology? The Internet? Corporate boardrooms? Youthspeak? How do world events--from tsunamis and hurricanes to political doublespeak and presidential linguistic bumbling--influence the words we use on a daily basis? What do e-mails, text messages, and emoticons contribute to the language? Let WordMan Paul J.J. Pa...
An informative, fascinating resource suitable for students, researchers, and general readers, this biographical dictionary is a "who was who" of world and space explorers, giving readers a sense of the human drama—the achievements and the challenges—that those who go where few or none have gone before must face. The explorers covered include Jacques Cousteau, Sir Vivian Fuchs, John Glenn Jr., Aleksei Leonov, Annie Peck, Valentina Tereshkova, and many more.
This is the first English translation of the journal of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville. Although he published an account of his voyage in 1771, and despite wide interest and controversy in Europe following reports of his reception in Tahiti and life on the island, the journal itself was not published until 1977.The Pacific Journal of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville follows his progress across the Pacific and northwards via the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, endeavouring to complete the inadequate charts of the time and leaving his name to a number of features, the best known of which is Bougainville Island.The Pacific Journal is published with extensive editorial notes and a full explanatory introduction. Also included are journals of other participants in the expedition.
Containing more than 600 entries, this valuable resource presents all aspects of travel writing. There are entries on places and routes (Afghanistan, Black Sea, Egypt, Gobi Desert, Hawaii, Himalayas, Italy, Northwest Passage, Samarkand, Silk Route, Timbuktu), writers (Isabella Bird, Ibn Battuta, Bruce Chatwin, Gustave Flaubert, Mary Kingsley, Walter Ralegh, Wilfrid Thesiger), methods of transport and types of journey (balloon, camel, grand tour, hunting and big game expeditions, pilgrimage, space travel and exploration), genres (buccaneer narratives, guidebooks, New World chronicles, postcards), companies and societies (East India Company, Royal Geographical Society, Society of Dilettanti), and issues and themes (censorship, exile, orientalism, and tourism). For a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia website.
The objective to this study is, essentially, to arrive at a view of exoticism as a relation between (Western) Self and (exotic) Other that is fluctuatingly tenuous or strong depending on the narrating subject's position vis-a-vis a point of departure (and return) that I have alternately called Home, Center, and audience.
This is the engrossing story of Mauritius, the exotic Indian Ocean island port of call at the heart of the fabled "Spice Route". Although first discovered and visited by the Arabs and the Portuguese, and subsequently colonised by the Dutch, the French and the English, it is the French influence that is most keenly felt in Mauritius today, thanks to France's nearly century-long rule over Mauritius from 1715 to 1810. Combining rich historical detail, rare archival documents, antique lithographs paintings, and portraits, and fascinating stories of well-known figures of the period - like the founder of the colony Governor Mahé de La Bourdonnais, the explorer and botanist Pierre Poivre, and the celebrated explorer Jean- François de Lapérouse - Mauritius on the Spice Route is an invitation to step back in time and discover the fascinating history of this exotic paradise.