The Journal of Rochfort Maguire 1852–1854 Two Years at Point Barrow Alaska aboard HMS Plover in Search for Sir John Franklin Volume I In 1845 Sir John Franklin's expedition left England searching for a northwest passage and vanished into the Arctic forever. Three years later HMS Plover's was the first departure of 21 expeditions searching for Franklin. Although most of the analyses of the Franklin Search have focused on the large expeditions in the eastern Arctic the smaller western expeditions also produced significant geographical and ethnographical information. The Plover's voyage of 1848 to 1854 was the first constant presence of Europeans in the western Arctic and Rochfort Maguire's journal is the earliest account of a sustained foreign association with the Eskimos of northern Alaska. Maguire's journal is far more than an important historical document; it is a fascinating account of Europeans and Eskimos learning to cope with one another. Maguire's narrative is introduced by a detailed discussion of the history strategy and logistics of the Franklin Search in the western Arctic. Appendices include accounts of the Search's five boat expeditions near Point Barrow as well as Dr John Simpson's seminal essay on the Eskimos of northern Alaska. The main pagination of this and the following volume (Second series 170) is continuous. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1987. | The Journal of Rochfort Maguire 1852–1854 Two Years at Point Barrow Alaska aboard HMS Plover in Search for Sir John Franklin Volume I GBP 38.99 1
Pedro Páez's History of Ethiopia 1622 / Volume II This book in two volumes contains an annotated English translation of the História da Ethiópia by the Spanish Jesuit missionary priest Pedro Páez (Pêro Pais in Portuguese) 1564-1622 who worked in the Portuguese padroado missions first in India and then in Ethiopia long thought to be the kingdom of the legendary Prester John. His history of Ethiopia was written in Portuguese in the last ten years of his life and survives in only two manuscripts. The translation by Christopher J. Tribe is based on the new critical edition of the Portuguese text by Isabel Boavida Hervé Pennec and Manuel João Ramos which was published in Lisbon in 2008. They are also the editors of this English version. The History of Ethiopia is an essential source for several areas of study - from the history of the Catholic missions in that country and the relations between the European religious orders to the history of art and religions; from the history of geographical exploration to the ideological contextualization of the Ethiopian kingdom; from material culture to Abyssinian political and territorial administration; and from an analysis of local circumstances to changes in human ecology in the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean. It is a repository of empirical knowledge on the political geography religion customs flora and fauna of Ethiopia. It combines travel narrative with a historico-ethnographic monograph and is a chronicle of the activities of Jesuit missionaries in their Ethiopian mission. It also reworks a wide variety of documents including the first translations into a European language of a number of Ethiopian literary texts from royal chronicles to hagiographies. It complements other early accounts of Ethiopia by Ludovico de Varthema Francisco Alvares Castanhoso Bermudez Arnold von Harff Manoel de Almeida Bahrey Alessandro Zorzi Jerónimo Lobo and Václav Prutky all published by The Hakluyt Society. | Pedro Páez's History of Ethiopia 1622 / Volume II GBP 38.99 1