Marco Polo in the New York Times Book Review
Marco Polo opened Asia to European trade, so we're told, but we generally don't know much else. Laurence Bergreen remedies that by bolstering Polo's reputation and arguing for his historical importance in a book as enthralling as a rollicking travel journal. Bergreen, who has written biographies of Louis Armstrong, James Agee and Irving Berlin, turned his attention to ancient explorers with “Over the Edge of the World,” which tracked Ferdinand Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe. I was a fan of that book, but “Marco Polo” far outshines it, and not surprisingly. Read more.
Bergreen featured on The Wall Street Journal's Editorial Page
If It Is Adventure You Seek: These books on exploration are marvelous finds.
Published November 3, 2007. Read the full article.
Authors @ Google Lecture
Watch a video of Bergreen's talk at the Google offices in Cambridge.
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Latest PublicationMarco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu "A book as rollicking as a travel journal." To schedule an interview, contact: To schedule a lecture, contact: |
Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe
Bergreen's 7th book, about the first circumnavigation of the globe, is now in its 18th printing. Learn more about the book.
Bergreen Names Mars
(Click Image to Enlarge)
A Note from the Author:
"In 2006, the scientist Steve Squyres of Cornell University and NASA was deep in an extended mission for the Mars rover known as Opportunity. This interplanetary tractor had already survived far longer than expected in the harsh Martian environment of dust storms and subzero temperatures. Like the proverbial Timex watch, it had taken a lickin' and kept on tickin'. Now Squyres wanted to drive this hardy rover around and eventually into the crater named Victoria, after the sole of ship of Magellan's fleet to complete the first-ever circumnavigation of the globe. The plan was not without risks. It could wind up falling off a steep cliff, or buried in a sandstorm, or simply lose power and expire. Nevertheless, Steve and his dedicated team at NASA were all for exploring the Red Planet as long as Opportunity functioned.
Because I'd written Over the Edge of World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe, which was published in 2003, as well as an earlier book about NASA's exploration of the Red Planet, Voyage to Mars (2000), Steve asked me to contribute names for features discovered on Mars by Opportunity after those discovered by Magellan his circumnavigation. And so I did. Since then, places discovered in and around Victoria crater such as Duck Bay and many others derive from features in South America and the Pacific that Magellan visited almost five hundred years earlier. So NASA affirmed that the spirit of exploration and discovery is alive and well in our own day, as it extends from earth to Mars and beyond."
The result can be followed on maps of Mars (as pictured above), produced by NASA.
