Shores of discovery

About this book

Shores of Discovery explores the lives and motives of those who have engaged in every conceivable kind of expedition: military, missionary, commercial, scientific, even tourist. It examines the bonds linking companies and bands, crews and fleets of soldiers, sailors, missionaries, and merchants, and the causes inspiring them to leave home, cross vast distances, and arrive in foreign lands. Memorable in their own right as stories of human aspiration, these sagas of attempts to go beyond the limits of the known offer vital clues to our own time about how different nations and cultures communicate across the boundaries of words. Through the exchange of gods and goods and information, through wordless gesture and the sharing of clothing, through music and dance, medicine and painting, these voyagers have constructed the world.