Scientific Exploration and Expeditions

Gr 6—9—Hamilton's 115 entries in this set describe the courses and discoveries of significant scientific expeditions from the early 15th century to mid 2009. Chapters range in content from "Discovery, Age of" to "Maps and Mapmaking." Along with describing the accomplishments of, for example, Charles Darwin, Neil Armstrong, and Heinrich Schliemann, the author discusses the work of the Leakey family, the lesser-known journeys of explorers such as Mary Kingsley and Mexican-American botanist Ynes Mexia, and the spectacular if sometimes stuntlike adventures of Richard Francis Burton, Thor Heyerdahl, and Robert Ballard. Each chapter opens with a time line and closes with a brief further-reading list. Many also feature a relevant side essay, "see" references, and one or more small, muddy black-and-white prints or photos. The prose is as staid as the book design, but aside from occasional slips (such as a bald claim that Burton "discovers Lake Tanganyika"), the presentations are systematic, carefully detailed, not exclusively Eurocentric, and when appropriate, skeptical. The currency of information and focus on science will make this work particularly useful alongside such broader but more dated resources as Peggy Saari and Daniel B. Baker's multivolume Explorers and Discoverers from Alexander the Great to Sally Ride (1995, UXL).—John Peters, formerly at New York Public Library