Historical Geography

Being whisked back to 1300 BC certainly wasn't on Henry's to-do list. Can he make his way through a new school, odd sports, unexpected friends and deadly pets, Egyptian style? And will he everfind his way back to the present day?

From New Yorker writer Ed Caesar, The Moth and the Mountain is a sweeping true story about one man's attempt to salve the wounds of war and save his own soul through an audacious adventure: flying his biplane five thousand miles across the world and attempting to become the first... person to summit Mt. Everest. In the 1930s, as official government expeditions set their sights on conquering Everest, a little-known World War I veteran named Maurice Wilson conceived his own crazy, beautiful plan: he would fly a plane from England to Everest, crash land on its lower slopes, then become the first person to reach its summit--all utterly alone. Wilson didn't know how to climb. He barely knew how to fly. But he had the right plane, the right equipment, and a deep yearning to achieve his goal. In 1933, he took off from London in a Gipsy Moth biplane with his course set for the highest mountain on earth. Wilson's eleven-month journey to Everest was wild: full of twists, turns, and daring. Eventually, in disguise, he sneaked into Tibet. His icy ordeal was barely beginning. Wilson was one of the Great War's heroes, but also one of its victims. His hometown of Bradford, in northern England, was ripped apart by the fighting. So was his family. He barely survived the war himself. Wilson returned from the conflict unable to cope with the sadness that engulfed him. He began a years-long trek around the world, burning through marriages and relationships, leaving damaged lives in his wake. When he finally returned to England, nearly a decade after he first left, he found himself falling in love once more--this time with his best friend's wife--before depression overcame him again. He emerged from his funk with a crystalline ambition. He wanted to be the first man to stand on top of the world. Wilson believed that Everest could redeem him. This is the tale of an adventurer unlike any you have ever encountered: complex, driven, wry, haunted, and fully alive. He is a man written out of the
Read more

Making a New Land presents an interdisciplinary perspective on one of the most rapid and extensive transformations in human history: that which followed Maori and then European colonisation of New Zealand's temperate islands. This is a new edition of Environmental Histories of Ne...w Zealand, first published in 2002, brimming with new content and fresh insights into the causes and nature of this transformation, and the new landscapes and places that it produced. Unusually among environmental histories, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of change, focusing on international as well as local contexts. Its 19 chapters are organised in five broadly chronological parts: Encounters, Colonising, Wild Places, Modernising, and Contemporary Perspectives. These are framed by an editorial introduction and a reflective epilogue. The book is well illustrated with photographs, maps, cartoons and other graphics.
Read more

Monuments: why do we make them, and why do we tear them down? Bestselling historian Keith Lowe gives a bold new history of our lives since World War Two, told through the stories of our most powerful monuments.

The very first maps were oral maps made by early Polynesian and Maori settlers which were waypoints, described as 'survey pegs of memory', lists of places in songs, chants, karakia and stories that showed direction. Hundreds of years later, the Dutch Abel Tasman sailed here and m...ade the first attempt at a physical map; followed more than 100 years later by Cook, whose map was much more detailed as he circumnavigated the country. Once the detail of the coastline was filled in, more detailed maps of the interior were made by those in search of resources to exploit. A clever look at New Zealand history and also at the intriguing tradition of map making.
Read more