Review by Booklist Review
Author of titles about Christopher Columbus, James Cook, and David Livingston, Dugard here delves into the explorer as a personality type. Acknowledging a debt to a similar inquiry, mountaineer Wilfrid Noyce's The Springs of Adventure (1959), Dugard structures his title around a famous expedition, Richard Burton and John Speke's 1857-58 quest to discover the source of the Nile. Using seven traits to illustrate their characters as explorers, Dugard discusses the events of their journey in terms of each man's as the book's chapters are headed curiosity, hope, passion, courage, independence, self-discipline, and perseverance. As Burton and Speke encounter problems typical in discovery annals daunting terrain, illness, privation, and mutual acrimony Dugard develops the seven traits along several tracks, including psychology, physiology, and other adventurers who exemplified the trait under discussion. Thus, his narrative can jump from introversion to dopamine, and from Burton-Speke to Ernest Shackleton's courageous perseverance to rescue his crew from Antarctica in 1914-16. Such a varied shuffling of subjects should keep the exploration audience locked into Dugard's portrait of the discoverer archetype.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Dugard (The Training Ground) uses Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke's quest to find the Nile's source as a framing device to craft a fascinating examination of the seven key traits of history's most famous explorers. Curiosity, hope, passion, courage, independence, self-discipline, and perseverance, Dugard says, are crucial traits explorers must possess in order to achieve their goals: "Take away one... and an expedition was doomed to failure." He expands on this premise with examples of explorers who embodied (or lacked) those traits including Edmund Hillary's exploration of Everest, Columbus's quest for a new path to Asia, and Robert Falcon Scott's trek to the South Pole. Detailed accounts of vicious attacks (including cannibalism), blindness from extreme exposure, and the constant threat of severe illness demonstrate the pitfalls many explorers encountered. Even when they did reach their goal, it rarely resulted in material wealth-Columbus, for example, was "considered a failure in his day." The ultimate prize was immortality. In lesser hands, this exercise could come off as pedantic or pedestrian, but Dugard's infusions of insight and enthusiasm carry the reader and drive his points home. Agent: Eric Simonoff, William Morris Endeavor. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Curiosity. Hope. Passion. Courage. Independence. Self-discipline. Perseverance. Dugard (coauthor, Killing Lincoln) identifies these as the qualities that successful explorers display over the course of their journeys and from which the rest of us can learn. As the foundation for his argument, the author uses the 1857-58 expedition of Richard -Francis Burton (1821-90) and John Hanning Speke (1827-64) to find the source of the Nile River, noting the difficulties they experienced in traveling into Africa, the clash of their personalities, and the fallout from their conflicting conclusions regarding the river's source. Dugard arranges his chapters by the traits listed and investigates related psychological/behavioral research then meanders on a far--ranging journey through time and other explorers who have displayed similar attributes. VERDICT Unlike most exploration narratives, this book sets a different course while hitting the highlights of an expedition and its outcome. Dugard's writing so entertains that readers will not mind the various tangents and digressions.-Margaret -Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Lib., IN (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An account of the search for the source of the Nile River, mixed in with psychological and sociological lessons to be gleaned from the explorers story.Dugard (To Be a Runner, 2011, etc.), who co-authored the Killing books by Bill OReilly, gives gripping treatment to the mid-1800s Richard Francis BurtonJohn Hanning Speke African adventure, despite the intrusion of a warrantless theory of traits to explain the human urge to explore. It was a curious minglingthe outsized, egotistical personality of Burton with the introverted, disciplined Speke. But as Dugard presents in this enjoyable re-creation of their hellacious journey, they still made considerable discoveries in the wilds of Africa. Then, their very public post-expedition argument provided another angle of melodrama to the already highly colored world of exploration. A number of other explorers get drawn into Dugards picturee.g., Christopher Columbus, Edmund Hillary, Alexander von Humboldtand the author has a talent for making even the smallest appearance another gratifying ingredient to illustrate our human desire to explore the unknown. However, when Dugard tries to tie a bow around this company of misfits by advancing the notion that they all possess seven traits, the narrative gets forced into a straitjacket. There isnt a single explorer, or even individual, who would not benefit from possessing curiosity, hope, passion, courage, independence, self-discipline and perseverance, and Dugard fails to make the case that [t]ake away onejust oneand an expedition was doomed to failure. Further, the author inflates his focus to include ambition, sacrifice, ethics and morals, creative intelligence and a host of other premium qualitiesTheir trick was to be bold, even when they were cold, wet, tired, hungry, miserable, or sickwhile playing down or ignoring altogether the less savory grandiosity, simple commercialism or pure greed that certainly afflicted the explorers at various points throughout their journeys.A fine adventure yarn nearly sapped by a gratuitous hook. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
