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 a geographical unknown: the location of the Nile
River’s source. They traveled deep into a forbidding and
uncharted African wilderness together before arriving at two
different solutions to the mystery and parting ways as 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.
In The Explorers, New York
Times bestselling author Martin Dugard tells 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 as history’s most legendary explorers,
called upon to see their impossible journeys through to the
end: curiosity, hope, passion, courage, independence,
self-discipline, and perseverance. 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 courage and survival. 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
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