Riassunto
Trama e riassunto di Un libro di scoperte
A chi è rivolto
For readers who love history told as adventure, families who enjoy a clear sweep of exploration, and anyone who wants the big picture of voyages, trade routes and polar journeys.
Che cos’è questo libro
A Book of Discovery is a history of exploration for general readers, written by M. B. Synge in the early twentieth century. It tells how people moved out from their own villages and coasts to learn what the rest of the world looked like. The book follows that long story from the sailors of the ancient Mediterranean to the explorers of the polar regions.
Synge writes as a storyteller more than a scholar. She picks out the voyages, the leaders, the ships and the hardships, and she keeps the pace of a tale. You meet merchants, monks, kings, soldiers and sailors, each with a reason to go. Some want gold, some want trade routes, some want land, and some simply want to know. By the end you have a clear map in your head of how the known world grew, and of the cost of each step. Let us begin where the written record begins, with the first sailors who dared to leave sight of home.
In questo riassunto
- 1Exploration begins with trade and curiosityFree
- 2Medieval travellers open the road east
- 3Portugal and Spain push out across oceans
- 4The world is circled and the Americas entered
- 5Cook and the filling in of the map
- 6The poles are the last great goals
Punto chiave 1 di 6
Exploration begins with trade and curiosity
Synge starts in the ancient world, where the first long journeys were made for practical reasons. The Phoenicians, who lived along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, were traders and sailors. They carried goods from port to port and pushed out beyond the narrow sea into the Atlantic. Their ships made them rich, and they kept their routes secret so that rivals could not follow.
The Greeks add a different motive. They were traders and settlers too, but they were also thinkers who wanted to describe the earth. Their writers and geographers collected reports from travellers and tried to draw the world on a map. Some of those maps were wrong in large ways, yet the habit of asking where the edges of the world lay was a real step forward.
The Romans come next, and they explore as an empire does. Their roads, armies and officials carried knowledge across Europe, North Africa and western Asia. Distance and rumour still stood between Europe and the east.
The lesson of this first stretch is that exploration grows out of ordinary needs. People sail to sell, to settle, to fight and to find out. The ancient world leaves a thin picture of the globe, but it also leaves a map of the Mediterranean and its edges, and a hunger for more. That hunger drives everything that follows.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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Questions about Un libro di scoperte
What is A Book of Discovery about?
It is a history of exploration. It follows travellers and sailors from the ancient Mediterranean through the age of Columbus and Magellan to the inland journeys in Africa and the race to the poles.
Who wrote A Book of Discovery?
M. B. Synge, a British writer of popular history in the early twentieth century. She died in 1939. She wrote clear, story-driven history aimed at general readers and young people.
Is A Book of Discovery a true story?
Yes. It is non-fiction, a retelling of real voyages and expeditions. It was written over a century ago, so newer research has added to or corrected some details.
Is A Book of Discovery hard to read?
No. The language is plain and the chapters are built around people and journeys.
Which explorers does the book cover?
Among others, Marco Polo, Prince Henry the Navigator, Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Cortes, Drake, Captain Cook, Livingstone and the polar explorers Amundsen and Scott.