Explorers

A New History

19 September 2025

Territory Rights — Worldwide.

Description

The impulse to seek out new worlds is universal to humanity

The impulse to seek out new worlds is universal to humanity. In a truly inclusive account of exploration, historian Matthew Lockwood interweaves stories of famous figures—including Sacagawea, Pocahontas and Dr Livingstone—with tales of individuals who are usually denied the title “explorer”. Lockwood’s new cast of adventurers includes Rabban Bar Sawma, a Uighur monk who traversed the Middle East and Europe; Yatsuke, an East African traveller to Japan during the sixteenth century; and David Dorr, a man born in slavery whose travelogues reshaped Americans’ understanding of Africa. In lives filled with imagination and wonder, curiosity, connection and exchange, these figures unfurl a human tapestry of discovery. Spanning forty centuries and six continents, this thrilling and concise history redefines what it means to discover, who counts as an explorer and what counts as exploration.

Reviews

"Mr. Lockwood takes a positive attitude, presenting tales of unsung (and under-sung) historical figures... by illuminating the crisscross nature of peregrination through the stories of people who engaged in it, Explorers achieves its hedgehog end." — Meghan Cox Gurdon, Wall Street Journal

"In this expansive and compassionate account, we find the lost voices of Indigenous guides, female voyagers, immigrants, and kidnapped and enslaved persons whose experiences have long been overlooked. Explorers: A New History is a long overdue reckoning that strips away the old trope of heroic conquerors without losing a sense of awe, curiosity, and wonder." — Melissa L. Sevigny, author of Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon, 0

"Wonderfully insightful and entertaining… Gives voice to those who have been overlooked for too long and without whom the history of exploration is far less interesting and consequential." — Eric Jay Dolin, author of Left for Dead and Black Flags, Blue Waters

"Expansive and playful, this book is a mediation on the dense history of human urge to explore. Matthew Lockwood brings together the globe in reminding us that there is no one time, one place or one person with an exclusive pleasure of curiosity. A homage to the adventures of our world ancestors - and to our own." — Ruby Lal, author of Empress and Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan

Paperback

9781324110316

140 x 210 mm • 176 pages

£8.99

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Ebook

9781324073888

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£16.99

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