Cassell's Tales of Endurance

by Fergus Fleming

An unrivalled collection of tales of courage, stamina, resourcefulness and the will to survive from the author of the best-selling Barrow’s Boys.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography

518 pages, Hardcover

First published October 14, 2004

Reviews

[Osama Siddique · Rating 4 out of 5]

The age of discovery - read 'European rediscovery or at times stumbling upon' already existing, known and often inhabited terrain' - is hugely paradoxical. It evokes in me a great sense of wonder as one can't help but marvel at the unimaginable courage, pioneering spirit, resourcefulness and curiosity of extraordinary men who set off on journeys of discovery where the prospects were highly uncertain and mortality rates depressing. Whether it was crossing the vast and forbidding deserts of Arabia, Africa and Central Asia or chalking courses through (to them) strange and unknown waters it was only the extraordinarily ambitious, the unbelievably reckless or the unmanageably restless who undertook these journeys. At the same time, these men were often driven by greed and could be discoverers and even diplomats one day and looters, marauders and savage belligerents the next. They helped shift balance of powers and were the instigators and path-finders for new empires and next stages in human civilizational history. Indeed, their actions brought about many brutal intended and unintended consequences, gave birth to centuries of enslavement and exploitation and shifted wealth from one part of the world to another. The stories nevertheless are some of the most fascinating ones in human history, date back as they do to a time when the world was more mysterious and unknown and hence more fascinating.

This is an excellent collection of pieces that chronologically takes us through three phases - the Age of Reconnaissance, the Age of Inquiry, and the Age of Endeavor - that provide a very instructive overview of the evolution of modern understanding of geography, sea-faring and cartography. The chapters well condense major chapters in this saga and contain fascinating details of the journeys, the triumphs and the debacles as well as many interesting pictures and illustrations. Fleming is a popular historian with the gift of wit which makes the reading even more pleasurable. The various eras in which these explorers set out they were beset by the unknown and the maps and accounts that exists were often inaccurate, exaggerated or plainly misleading. It took a special courage, voracious ambition and no little bravado to therefore undertake such almost reckless expeditions. It is no surprise that many of them were highly idiosyncratic and Fleming does a fantastic job of capturing their personalities through the fragments of history available to us through travel diaries and accounts and official records.

(to be continued)

[Matty Speechley · Rating 5 out of 5]

new favourite explorers:

Ibn Battuta,
John Franklin,
Crew of Polaris,
Douglas Mawson

[zunggg · Rating 3 out of 5]

What boy doesn't love Tales of Endurance? Diets of weevils and worse, addled wanderings through scorched or frozen wastes, sudden death by crevassing or slow death by scurvy or husky-liver OD? Not this boy, that's for sure.

[Mae · Rating 4 out of 5]

james cook now there’s a crazy guy

[Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

To call this book a history of exploration may seem at once both overly optimistic and slightly redundant. It is by no means a complete account of the expeditions it covers, nor is it a history per se, focussing more on the will, desire, and often the tyranny and arrogance of the early explorers. Men who forged their way across uncharted seas, walked across vast continents, and suffered at the hands of nature at every turn. Glorifying these early-day explorers is easy and thankfully something that Fergus Fleming steers clear of, preferring to give an accurate portrayal of their character no matter how loathsome.

For their in lies the fascination, what drives these men?