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BILL O'REILLY
“Using his usual brilliant research, Martin Dugard takes the reader on a thrill ride to some of the most dangerous places on earth. Can you handle it?”
JAMES PATTERSON
“Martin Dugard has written bestselling histories with Bill O’Reilly, and with me, but with The Explorers, he shows that he does his best work as a solo performer. The Explorers has a distinctive voice and the drama never flags from beginning to end.”
Learn to unlock your inner explorer: the riveting account of one of history’s greatest adventures and a study of the seven character traits all great explorers share.
In 1856, two intrepid adventurers, Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke, set off to unravel mankind’s greatest geographical mystery: finding the source of the Nile River. They traveled deep into a forbidding and uncharted African wilderness together, coming near death on several occasions. Ultimately, Burton and Speke arrived at two different conclusions about the Nile’s origin. Before leaving Africa they became sworn enemies. The feud became an international sensation upon their return to England, and a public debate was scheduled to decide whose theory was correct. What followed was a massive spectacle with an outcome no one could have ever foreseen.
The Explorers, by New York Times bestselling author Martin Dugard shares the rich saga of the Burton and Speke expedition. To better understand their motivations and ultimate success, Dugard guides readers through the seven vital traits that Burton and Speke, as well of history’s most legendary explorers, called upon to see their impossible journeys through to the end. In doing so, Dugard demonstrates that we are all explorers, and that these traits have a most practical application in everyday life.
Within some of us beats the heart of a mountain climber; within others, that of a budding entrepreneur. Just like the explorers, life will present us with great unknowns: the diagnosis of cancer, the call to help a troubled friend, the need to move forward after great tragedy. As professionals we will attempt to chart paths that have never been mapped. And however modest our lives may appear on the outside, there will be times requiring the same deep moral decisions and complex tactical judgments explorers faced in strange lands, thousands of miles from home.
The Explorers is a book about survival and courage. It is also a book about stepping into the darkness with confidence and grace, aware on some profound level — as were Burton and Speke — that the Promised Land we are searching for is not some lost corner of the world, but a place within ourselves.