Comments on: Ignorance, Bigotry and a Free Book (5/5/2014)

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sun, 11 May 2014 08:38:09 +0000

The Gods of Random decree Tom shall win the book. As for the rest, you were all awesome with so many interesting lives to go and research that it was really, really hard to actually pick one. But pick I have, and now I’ll go back to letting the Gods of Random do the hard work in future!

By: Michael P

Michael P — Thu, 08 May 2014 22:28:27 +0000

First off, we can always use more Zafir. She is certainly what made Dragon Queen so good.
And on the ’strong female’ note, how about Amelia Earhart? While not an explorer, per se, she most assuredly pushed boundaries, and went to explore where no man, at that time, had yet thought to go.

By: Mango Heroics

Mango Heroics — Thu, 08 May 2014 22:08:32 +0000

I was going to mention Sacajawea, with the same disclaimers as Paul already did. And Zheng He, but He’s been mentioned twice already. There have been astronauts who were not white dudes. After that, I want to turn to fictional characters, but that won’t do. Oh well. Maybe I’ll come back later for a second chance.

By: Kris

Kris — Thu, 08 May 2014 14:05:53 +0000

Muhammad al-Idrisi, 12th century geographer and explorer of wild uncivilized lands like France and England.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 07 May 2014 20:02:42 +0000

or try Zheng He for a chinese explorer

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 07 May 2014 19:59:38 +0000

well, there’s always Dora.

seriously though, try Matthew Henso, first African-American arctic explorer

By: Ros Jackson

Ros Jackson — Wed, 07 May 2014 14:23:11 +0000

The only major explorer I can think of who hasn’t been mentioned is William Dampier, again a white dude. In his time (early 1700s) the Kit Cat club were very active in the publishing world. They weren’t just one of the first gentleman’s clubs, they were also a society of men who were very active in suppressing women’s voices. It was one of those times when things were definitely getting worse for women.

Anne Bonny and Mary Read probably explored a fair bit as pirates, but they had to pretend to be men to even get on a ship. (Dampier and Drake were pirates too, more or less).

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 07 May 2014 08:26:13 +0000

Europeans really did do more global exploration than previous cultures, largely thanks to technical innovations such as the carrack. That said, the most epic non-European explorers that I know of are the unnamed Phoenicians who (reportedly) circumnavigated Africa c. 600 BCE, during the reign of the Egyptian King Necho II.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necho_II#Phoenician_expedition

Also worth mentioning: the Chinese explorer Zeng He (c. 1400 CE), and of course every Polynesian seafarer ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesians

By: jacky khan

jacky khan — Wed, 07 May 2014 08:19:24 +0000

Hi just read all..didnt scroll..and it struck me that there are some we wouldnt class as explorers because of their (to ‘us’) bad press. Im thinking Genghis Khan as an example. From his neck of the woods his ‘conquering’ was also maybe seen as exploration…Hannibal…elephant pre-occupation aside, same kinda issue. That of ‘discovering’ us! We dont look at the subject of starting explorations from anywhere but the west. Uk..europe..usa etc. This gives 2 sides to the bias (or ignorance (-; ); That the explorer will by default be white(ish) and that the discovered will be ‘the other’ (not white-ish). A third default also fixes on our ‘great age of discovery’ – victorian and back…at this time again the default will be white and male…no-one else was doing anything..or so we are led to believe…look at history deeper and we see many intrepid women explorers. The fact it was frowned upon and thus passed over means we have/ had no real open promotion of these people even now..thus i cant recall names!! Again the race card has the same effect. One only has to look at the exploration of everest to see the invaluable work of the sherpas. Altho we know of 1 many others are passed over..tensing being an anomalie that popped up as a direct result of his promotion by his peer..an unusual situation then, and now it would appear! So there are many many non white men and women. But youre right we only ever look out from our lands across history…never back at ourselves…we never needed discovering..we were always there…as opposed to china..the congo or the east. Maybe ‘they’ took a quick look at ‘us’ and ran a mile! Who would blame ‘them’. I hope ive managed to garble my way thru clearly enough to makes sense without offending anyone. Never dived in like this…just thought i would pass on the thoughts that popped into my head (thus emptying out names etc of the famous..tried to skim over that but it does show i guess..sorry ??)

Be happy.. jacky khan xxx

By: Adam Parkinson

Adam Parkinson — Wed, 07 May 2014 00:37:01 +0000

How about Xuan Zang the Chinese Buddhist monk who wandered China, Asia and India for 16 years, On foot!