From the first people to leave Africa to the first to leave the planet, Explorers tells the story of humanity's explorations, taking readers into the lives of some of the most intrepid people ever known. Focusing on 50 of the world's greatest explorers, from Alexander the Great and Leif Erikson to Amundsen and Ernest Shackleton, Explorers is filled with first-person accounts in the explorers' own words, rare maps, specially commissioned photographs, and artworks that re-create history's greatest expeditions. Whether trade, the search for lands to colonize, or scientific curiosity and missionary zeal, Explorers looks at history's most famous trail blazers-people whose courage opened frontiers, turned voids into maps, forged nations, connected cultures, and added to humankind's knowledge of the world by leaps and bounds. Includes a forward by Ranulph (Ran) — English adventurer and holder of several endurance records — and produced in association with The Smithsonian.