NO SPOILERS
Peter Rowe’s nonfiction hysterically funny “Out There: The Batshit Antics of the World’s Great Explorers” provides his readers with their most engaging look at history’s misunderstood legends of exploration and discovery.
For context, I have referred to the Urban Dictionary’s definition of ‘batshit.’ though my version paraphrases its definition. It’s defined in several ways: deranged, creating the appearance of being mentally unstable, an unconventional personality.
On to the book. It takes a certain kind of person to set out on a mission to explore unknown lands; and that just refers to explorers who ARE in their right minds.
The rogue’s gallery of nutcase explorers in Rowe’s book are presented in such a manner that it makes history funny-seriously!
If the explorers described weren’t already batshit, being stranded in the Arctic and the Antarctic regions did not restore their sanity. Conversely, many of them lost their fingers, toes, noses and ears to frostbite. To make their treks even worse, many of them fell victim to polar madness. As if that wasn’t bad enough polar madness can strike AFTER they have returned home-if they returned home. In one case a polar explorer became a successful homicidal maniac!
Africa! If seems like the British crown was obsessed with the continent. It dispatched so many of fruitless expeditions to find ‘lost cities,’ the source of the Nile, magical lands and more unbelievable lands. Rowe’s book details the mental instability of all of them. Unfortunately for most of them, they didn’t just fail to find their holy grails, they were attacked by tribesmen, they and their horses befallen by fever, became harpooned by javelins (ok, just one of them, but he WAS harpooned in his face :0).
What I want to know is who the eff had enough credibility to convince the Spanish crown to send Ponce de Leon to find the Fountain of Youth? I mean, really? Did the teller of that tall tale appear as a child to the Crown as a child to tell them he had drunk from the Fountain? Um, no. Yet, these fools believed him; so did de Leon. Off he went to find this nonexistent Fountain. At least he discovered Puerto Rico and established a permanent settlement in St. Augustine, Florida.
These are just a few of the batshit antics Rose’s book delights the reader with; it’s a must read-or listen for the history and comedy buff! It’s available at B&N, Amazon, Audible and other electronic traditional booksellers
Out There: The Batshit Antics of the World's Great Explorers
4.5 | 11 ratings
Price: 17.46
Last update: 07-14-2024
Top reviews from the United States
JaneG
This book makes history FUN!
Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2024Jennifer Grilliette
Short and easy
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2024
Bob Atwater
An Exceptionally Outstanding Read, A Must Have Book For Any Decent Explorers Library
Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2024Myles Kesten
Funny, outrageous, and hard to put down
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2024Jeff Blumenfeld
Scoundrels, ne'er-do-wells, grave robbers, fabulists, scammers and plunderers
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2024