Search

Early Europeans may have believed the world was flat, but by the Middle Ages there was widespread acceptance that it was, in fact, a globe. What remained a mystery, however, was what lay on the'other side'. Some believed it was a source of riches, an ocean harbouring countries where gold and unimaginable riches could be found, including islands from which King Solomon had obtained his wealth. In addition, the belief in a vast southern continent went back centuries, and many expeditions set out to find it, sometimes in search of wealth, sometimes to convert its inhabitants to Christianity. This is the story of the voyages into this great unknown, by the Chinese and early Americans, the Dutch, Spanish, French and English; it recounts the exploits of pirates and scientists, and even the impact of popular fiction on popular imagination, leading to the debunking of many myths, from the sunken Great Southern Continent, to the idea that in the'antipodes', people walked upside down.

Jean-François De Galup, Comte De La Pérouse is second only to James Cook in his historical significance and was the major explorer of the Pacific in the eighteenth century. Pérouse's life has been the subject of prolonged study by John Dunmore, the acknowledged world expert, and this fresh and lively biography reveals the epic adventure of an extraordinary life. As a naval officer La Pérouse captured two English forts in Hudson Bay in 1782 and was recognised by both sides for his courage and humanity. Three years later the King of France put him in charge of an expedition to rival James Cook's. Pérouse's two 500 ton ships left France in August 1785 replete with a mathematician and three naturalists. They mapped the American north west from Alaska to California and the unknown seas north of Japan and the Siberian coast. During the voyage messengers were sent overland back to France with reports and discoveries. Just five days after the First Fleet landed at Botany Bay, Australia, La Pérouse arrived and uneasy pleasantries were exchanged. Shortly after Pérouse set sail towards the Solomon Islands and he and his ships were never seen again. A romantic man with the saddest marriage story, a great soldier, an inspired leader and a man with a mysterious end, Pérouse's story has now finally come to light with this major new biography.

Louis-Antoine Comte de Bougainville (1729-1811) is best known for his circumnavigation of the globe from 1766 to 1769. Throughout a long and distinguished life, however, he participated in many of the turning points of world history: the fall of French Canada, the birth of the United States, the opening of the Pacific, the French revolution and the Revolutionary Wars, the crowning of Napoleon and the modernisation of France. Bougainville was also a witty and charming courtier, becoming one of Napoleon's senators. A true Man of the Enlightenment, he was gifted in navigation, seamanship, soldiering, mathematics, longitude and latitude – many of the arts that made his age one of most productive and creative in modern history. John Dunmore, a distinguished historian and an expert in French Pacific exploration, brings the man and his era to life in this vivid and elegantly written biography – the first such life of Bougainville to appear for 25 years.