The Horror. "Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800" by Raymond John Howgego. [review]

Abstract

You open Raymond John Howgego's book and dive into the world's great and terrible past. "The Encyclopedia of Exploration" is a vast, meticulous and absorbing record of human restlessness that seems to be quite without precedent. Designed and published in Australia, printed in China in clear fine type laid out on good opaque paper in well-organised entries, its nearly 1200 large pages are sturdily bound in olive green cloth and supplied with three silver ribbon bookmarks. All this costs just under $300, which is a bargain. This is a necessary book, produced not by 'a team of specialists' huddled in the shelter of an institution, but by a single scholar driven by passion.