5 comments about My Life as an Explorer: The Great Adventurers Classic Memoir (Kodansha Globe).

1. When you think of an "explorer" you think of a guy like Hedin. From an early age he ventured again and again into large swatches of Asian geography where few or no Europeans had ever trod. Hedin graphically and realistically portrays his travels with such detail that you can feel the cold, the heat, the parched throats, the curious indigenous eyes and the scenery staggering in its beauty. When you come to the end of this book, you will be all "adventured" out, for on almost every page there is a suspenseful, fascinating episode. Hedin was truly an explorer's explorer. His greatness is dimmed, however, by his fervent support of Naziism during WWII. As someone has writen elsewhere, Hedin knew about the death camps and never disavowed them. He was a solid Nazi partisan. In an epilogue to this book, author and admirer Peter Hopkirk urges us to look at Hedin's many and major contributions and to forgive his pro-German activities in both world wars. I'm not quite willing to forgive, but I will segment my views of Hedin into Hedin the explorer and Hedin the Nazi sympathizer. Anyhow,if you're looking for a fascinating book about exploration in the most forbidding sectors of our planet at the turn of the 20th century, this is a book for you.



2. The Swede Sven Hedin was the last great explorer we will see on this well-traveled planet. Hedin was born in 1865 and this autobiography describes his life up until 1908. Hedin's career was hardly finished, however, as he continued to traipse down the old Silk Road in Central Asia until the 1930s when he was 70 years old.
   
   In a happy trait that should be copied by more auto-biographers, Hedin doesn't spend much time on his childhood. By the third page of his narrative he is 20 years old and off to the Caucasus Mountains which only whets his appetite for the little-known peaks and deserts of Tibet and Central Asia. He spent the years between 1893 and 1908 exploring these regions and filling in blank places on the map.
   
   National Geographic's "Traveler" magazine put this book on its list of 100 best adventure books and, truly, the tales of Hedin's adventures make for good, exciting reading. Hedin displays both charm and generosity in his account. He traveled without the company of other Europeans and he enjoyed the companionship of his local helpers and the dogs he adopted along his way. He draws many clever portraits of the people he met in his travels. Hedin, however, was no mere adventurer. He was a serious, sober scholar who produced dozens of scientific studies of his findings.
   
   One of the most hair raising tales in the book concerns Hedin's first expedition into the sands of the Takla Makhan (desert) of China in which he and his companions nearly died of thirst. A second high point of the book is the account of his attempt to visit Lhasa, the forbidden capital of Tibet. He failed after getting nearly to the gates of the city and was denied the honor of becoming the first foreigner to visit Lhasa in half a century. Amidst the plethora of adventures, the stoic Swede brushes over incidents others would consider high -- or low -- points of their lives. "Fever kept me in Kashgar a long while" is his complete description of one serious illness.
   
   The book is illustrated with many of Hedin's drawings, including his hand drawn maps. I suggest that you read the book with a good modern map at hand so as to trace his routes with more precision as his constant tooing-and-froing can be confusing.
   
   Smallchief



3. (This refers to the National Geographic Reprint edition)

   This is truly a great book, full of the amazing adventures of an incredible explorer. You have to admire Hedin's determination and stubborness, although sometimes I wonder about his planning. It seems like every trip all his animals die, and the men are on the verge of starvation. And as for his trips in the desert, I would have thought the concept of "take some extra water" would have occured at some point!
   Hedin is a fine writer, and his descriptions are not only accessible to the average reader, but often quite poetic as well.
   Nevertheless, I only reluctantly give this a full 5 stars, because I feel that National Geographic missed a great opportunity to make this an almost perfect book, and it wouldn't have been that difficult to do. As a previous reviewer mentioned, some good maps could have helped. There's almost no excuse for NG not to have included some decent maps of Central Asia in their edition. Furthermore, one tends to forget (although Hedin mentions in the text), that he also took photographs on many of his travels. These might have been included as well. (To see some, refer to the Photos section of the website of the Sven Hedin Foundation, "http://www.etnografiska.se/hedinweb/htmsidor/organi.htm"). Aside from the simplistic drawings that are included, Hedin also did many detailed sketches and potraits on his travels. Now one can assume that none of these were included in the original, and this is only a reprint, but nevertheless, it is a missed opportunity. The introductory chapter by A.Brandt also adds little insight, and might as well have been left out as well.
   However, despite the lost opportunities, this book is highly recommended.




4. This is a tale wonderfully told of an explorer's quest to fill in the blank spots on the map of Asia. Not only does Hedin present a clear and highly entertaining view of his travels, but he also gives us a portrait of his character. He shows us that he is a man with high goals and is undeterred in achieving those goals, even when all odds are against him. He shows us that he is also a very caring man, very much concerned about the welfare of his men and his animals. He also is a man that is awestruck by nature and is very concerned about not unduly intruding upon it or unnecessarily destroying it.

   But most of all, this is an adventure story that is just plain fun to read.

   A suggestion to readers who are not very familiar with the geography of central Asia would be to have on hand some good maps as the ones Hedin draws are quite limited and often fail to give the perspective that may be desireable.




5. I concur with NDylanRay@aol.com. This book is exceptional. I could hardly put it down. You feel the excitement and intensity of his adventures, you begin to understand the force that drives him (and you respect him for it), and you meet the people and the places that make Turkestan and Tibet 100 years ago like no place that you could ever imagine.

No comments about Pierre-Simon Laplace, 1749-1827.

No comments about Who Invented What When.

2 comments about Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr.

1. This book is very good. The historical context about Hypatia's time and life is very interesting. Read this book, you'll learn much more about the christian's church in the first times.



2. This is a difficult book to evaluate. Deakin is a mathematician, not a classical historian, and apart from his discussion of Hypatia's place in Alexandrian mathematics, this biography contains little that is not already to be found elsewhere, most notably in Dzielska's study. Deakin does a reasonable job of putting Hypatia in a cultural context, but his understanding of late antiquity is superficial and admittedly garnered largely from encyclopedias. On the other hand, he has closely studied the sources for Hypatia's life (which he includes in an appendix) and the meagre evidence for her influence on philosophy and science. His introduction to astrolabes and conic sections is of some intrinsic interest and helps illuminate the state of knowledge in the fifth century, but since we have not one shred of writing that is inarguably Hypatia's work, the connection is rather tenuous. Nonetheless Deakin's conclusions give a valuable new perspective on this best-known of female Hellenists: one of a teacher with a wide range of interests, if not an original thinker.

No comments about Cavendish: The Experimental Life.

1 comments about Linnaeus: The Compleat Naturalist.

1. This book reprints the text of Wilfred Blunt's 1971 biography, "The Compleat Naturalist: A Life of Linnaeus," adding lavish illustrations, a brief bibliography by Gavin Bridson, an explanation of Linnaeus's system of taxonomy by William T. Stearn, and a comment on modern biological systematics by C. J. Humphries. Carl Linnaeus was an egotistical, vain, and sometimes difficult man, but he was also a beloved teacher, and his impact on natural history is undeniable. Blunt is a charming writer, and he skilfully tells the story of Linnaeus's rise from obscure provincial to famous professor, drawing on Linnaeus's own writings and those of his contemporaries. The illustrations bring to life the places Linnaeus lived and traveled and the plants that he observed, described, and named. Blunt has less to say about Linnaeus's science; readers who want to know how Linnaeus's contemporaries reacted to his ideas and what effect they had on biology will have to turn to works by Lisbet Koerner and others. But if you've ever wondered who was responsible for modern scientific nomenclature, and what it was like traveling in Sweden and Europe in the eighteenth century, this book is a fine place to start.

No comments about Further Incidents In The Life Of A Mining Engineer.

1 comments about John James Audubon (Library of American Art).

1. This book is a departure from the ordinary. Yes, there is much about his art and work, but there is much more about the man himself. Any who wish to get a reading of Audubon's personality, his mind-set, his values, must read this work by Foshay. Our business is Audubon, and we feel this book is the best to come out in years. Like the images Audubon produced, this book has "life" in it - Audubon's life. It will make you feel that you know the man. - EZ, Princeton Audubon

No comments about They Said It Couldn't Be Done:: The Incredible Story of Bill Lear.

No comments about Alfred Noble.