Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a trading route to China, and his unexpected landfall in the Americas, is a watershed event in world history. Yet Columbus made three more voyages within the span of only a decade, each designed to demonstrate that he could sail to China within a matter of weeks and convert those he found there to Christianity. These later voyages were even more adventurous, violent, and ambiguous, but they revealed Columbus's uncanny sense of the sea, his mingled brilliance and delusion, and his superb navigational skills. In all these exploits he almost never lost a sailor. By their conclusion, however, Columbus was broken in body and spirit. If the first voyage illustrates the rewards of exploration, the latter voyages illustrate the tragic costs, political, moral, and economic. In this book the author re-creates each of these adventures as well as the historical background of Columbus's celebrated, controversial career.

As the first European to travel extensively throughout Asia, Marco Polo was the earliest bridge between East and West. His famous journeys took him across the boundaries of the known world, along the dangerous Silk Road, and into the court of Kublai Kahn, where he won the trust of the most feared and reviled leader of his day. Polo introduced the cultural riches of China to Europe, spawning centuries of Western fascination with Asia. In this lively blend of history, biography, and travelogue, acclaimed author Laurence Bergreen separates myth from history, creating the most authoritative account yet of Polo's remarkable adventures. Exceptionally narrated and written with a discerning eye for detail, Marco Polo is as riveting as the life it describes.

"An exploration narrative of the highest order: the bestselling author of Over the Edge of the World brings alive the extraordinary life and adventures of Sir Francis Drake, whose mastery of the seas during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I changed the course of history-as a pirate raiding Spanish galleons, as the first explorer to successfully circumnavigate the globe, and as a naval hero who defeated the Spanish Armada and reshaped the global order"--

Is there life on Mars? If not, why not? These questions have gripped mankind throughout the twentieth century. In the shadow of the new millennium, The Genesis Question seeks the definitive answers from the scientists participating in the race to discover life on the Red Planet. 'Ever since I was a small child, I've believed there was life out there. When I look at the magnitude of the universe, with its billions of stars, I believe that if life developed here on Earth, it must have developed elsewhere. We simply can't be unique. I really don't think we're the most intelligent life forms in the universe, but that's just my gut feeling', Dr Claire Parkinson, NASA scientist. Of all the planets, Mars has exerted the most powerful allure over the human intellect and imagination. Generations of astronomers have expected to find clues to the origin and destiny of Earth and its inhabitants concealed amid the red storms sweeping across the surface of Mars. Today, public interest in the Mars mission is sky-high; the exploits of the tiny Mars Rover 'Sojourner' in the summer of 1997 excited the greatest curiosity in a space mission in a generation. In The Quest for Mars Laurence Bergreen has unrestricted access to a team of NASA employees - engineers, geologists and other scientists - who are consumed by the search for proof of life on Mars. As one formidable obstacle after another attempts to scupper their quest for a deeper understanding of life on Mars and throughout the Solar System, the narrative takes us step by step through the exhilaration and the despondency of their extraordinary adventure. Nothing is off limits in this unique, behind-the-scenes story of space exploration.