Doomed Expeditions

Discusses various expeditions that, for one reason or another, were unsuccessful. Includes the Lost Children's Crusade, the Donner expedition, and Amelia Earhart's last flight.

A gripping account of the disastrous first significant land encounter of WWII, focusing on the areas of Narvik and Bodö-Mosjöen, Namsos and Aandalsnes. In the early hours of 9 April 1940, the Germans invaded Denmark and Norway. Within twenty-four hours, Denmark was overwhelmed and the main Norwegian airfields and seaports were under German control. Thus started the first confrontation in modern war in which combined operations on land, sea, and in the air were fully involved. Reluctantly the Allies launched Anglo-French landings in the Lofoten Islands and in Central Norway. At the outset, serious liaison, command and, above all, communication problems arose. The urgent military needs of the Norwegians, with their King and government pursued by the Germans, were tragically misrepresented and never fully understood by the Allied politicians. On another level, personality clashes between senior commanders further confused conditions in the field, where lack of air cover, supporting arms, and equipment made the task of the comparatively few combatants almost impossible to perform. Heroic battles and humiliating retreats led to the inevitable evacuation of an Allied expedition doomed from the start.

The Nature of Hate and the Hatred of Nature in Hispanic Literatures retraces the “nature of hatred” and the “hatred of nature” from the earliest traditions of Western literature including Biblical texts, Medieval Spanish literature, early Spanish Renaissance texts, to nineteenth- and twentieth-century Iberian and Latin American literatures. The nature of hate is neither hate in its weakened form, as in disliking or loving less, nor hate in its righteous form, as in “I hate hatred,” rather hate in its primal form as told and conveyed in so many culturally influential Bible stories that are at the root of hatred as it manifests itself today. The hatred of nature is not only contempt for the natural world, but also the idea of nature hating in return, thus inspiring even more hatred of nature. While some chapters, such as the one dedicated to La Celestina, focus more on the nature of hate and the hatred of love, they do address the hatred of nature, as when Celestina conjures Pluto, who happens to be closer to nature than to Satan. Other chapters, such as the ones dedicated to the Latin American novels set in the jungle, focus more on the hatred of nature but ultimately turn to the nature of hatred by analyzing hatred and the descent into madness. In the final chapters Beatriz Rivera-Barnes simultaneously addresses the nature of hatred and the hatred of nature as well as the ecophilia/ecophobia debate in twentieth-century Latin American literatures and considers, if not an assimilation of hate, possibly the cannibalizing of hate.

Stella and the gang travel to Witch Mountain to save Felix and what they find along the way could change the course of their adventures forever in this second novel in the whimsical Polar Bear Explorers’ Club series. Stella Starflake Pearl has been eagerly awaiting her next adventure, ever since she and Felix returned from the Snowy Icelands. She fears, however, that she might never be sent on another expedition, especially since the president of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club himself is afraid of her ice princess powers. But when disaster strikes and Felix is snatched by a fearsome witch, Stella and the rest of the junior explorers—including a reluctant new ally from the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club—must set off into the unknown on a forbidden journey to the top of Witch Mountain. What awaits them there is a mystery. The only thing they know is this: No one ever returns from Witch Mountain. In the second installment of Alex Bell’s magical The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club series, Stella and the gang face villainous vultures, terrifying witch wolves, flying sharks, and eerie picnicking teddy bears on their daring quest to save one of their own.

"Percy Fawcett was a mapmaker and an adventurer. In the early 1900s, he spent years mapping out the jungles of South America. Fawcett became obsessed with the idea of a lost city of gold hidden deep in the jungle. At the age of 57, Fawcett, his 21-year-old son Jack, and Jack's friend Raleigh Rimell left on a quest to find the Lost City of Z. The three men were never heard from again. Untangle the clues they left behind"--

Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition departed England in 1845 with two Royal Navy bomb vessels, 129 men and three years' worth of provisions. None were seen again until nearly a decade later, when their bleached bones, broken instruments, books, papers and personal effects began to be recovered on Canada's King William Island. These relics have since had a life of their own--photographed, analyzed, cataloged and displayed in glass cases in London. This book gives a definitive history of their preservation and exhibition from the Victorian era to the present, richly illustrated with period engravings and photographs, many never before published. Appendices provide the first comprehensive accounting of all expedition relics recovered prior to the 2014 discovery of Franklin's ship HMS Erebus.

The Crusades and the Expansion of Catholic Christendom, 1000-1714 is a fascinating and accessible survey that places the medieval Crusades in their European context, and examines, for the first time, their impact on European expansion. Taking a unique approach that focuses on the motivation behind the Crusades, John France chronologically examines the whole crusading movement, from the development of a ‘crusading impulse’ in the eleventh century through to an examination of the relationship between the Crusades and the imperialist imperatives of the early modern period. France provides a detailed examination of the first Crusade, the expansion and climax of crusading during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the failure and fragmentation of such practices in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Concluding with an assessment of the influence of the Crusades across history, and replete with illustrations, maps, timelines, guides for further reading, and a detailed list of rulers across Europe and the Muslim world, this study provides students with an essential guide to a central aspect of medieval history.

The crusades were among the longest and most bitter wars in human history and consisted of no less than seven major expeditions from Western Europe from the late 11th to the early 14th centuries for the purpose of wresting Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the control of the Muslims. In the end, it was the Muslims who won, and the Christians who suffered a major setback, and the Middle East remained firmly in Muslim hands. This was one of the worst clashes between different religions and civilizations and, for long, it was largely forgotten or brushed over. That is no longer the case, with many Muslims regarding Western interference in the region as a repeat of the crusades while launching their own jihads. So, while an old conflict, it is still with us today. Even at the time, it was very hard to understand the causes and outcome of the crusades, and that remains a problem today. This Historical Dictionary of the Crusades cannot claim to have resolved it, but it most definitely does make the situation easier to understand. The introduction provides an overview, tracing the crusades from one expedition to the next, and assessing their impact. The actual flow of events is far easier to follow thanks to the chronology. And maps help to trace the events geographically. The entries, and there are more than 300 of them in this second edition, look more closely at notable figures, including Pope Gregory VII, Richard “the lionhearted,” and Saladin, as well as important places (Jerusalem, Constantinople and others), events, battles and sieges, as well as the use of weapons and armor. The bibliography points to further reading.