The Voyage of Thought is a micro-historical and cross-disciplinary analysis of the texts and contexts that informed the remarkable journey of the French ship captain, merchant, and poet, Jean Parmentier, from Dieppe to Sumatra in 1529. In tracing the itinerary of this voyage, Michael Wintroub examines an early attempt by the French to challenge Spanish and Portuguese oceanic hegemony and to carve out an empire in the Indies. He investigates the commercial, cultural, and religious lives of provincial humanists, including their relationship to the classical authorities they revered, the literary culture they cultivated, the techniques of oceanic navigation they pioneered, and the distant peoples with whom they came into contact. Ideal for graduate students and scholars, this journey into the history of science describes the manifold and often contradictory genealogies of the modern in the early modern world.

The Bern Book is a travelogue, a memoir, a “diary of an isolated soul” (Darryl Pinckney), and a meditation on the myth and reality of race in midcentury Europe and America. In 1953, having left the US and settled in Bern, Switzerland, Vincent O. Carter, a struggling writer, set about composing a “record of a voyage of the mind.” The voyage begins with Carter’s furiously good-humored description of how, every time he leaves the house, he must face the possibility of being asked “the hated question” (namely, Why did you, a black man born in America, come to Bern?). It continues with stories of travel, war, financial struggle, the pleasure of walking, the pain of self-loathing, and, through it all, various experiments in what Carter calls “lacerating subjective sociology.” Now this long-neglected volume is back in print for the first time since 1973.

"A pleasure. ... Suitable for beach reading or for mainlining before a dinner party." —Dan Piepenbring, New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) "Absorbing. ... As thoughtfully written as it is nuts." —Chicago Tribune A collection of the world’s most mind-boggling, thought-provoking, and downright hilarious theories by the co-host of the hit podcast No Such Thing as a Fish, Dan Schreiber. Why are we here? Do ghosts exist? Will we ever travel back in time? Are we being visited by extraterrestrials? Will we ever talk to animals? Are we being told the truth? Are mysterious creatures roaming the Earth? And why, when you’re in the shower, does the shower curtain always billow in towards you? We don’t know the answers to any of these questions (that includes the shower-curtain one, which is a mystery that has eluded scientists for decades, and which they are still trying to solve). But don’t worry, no matter what questions you have, you can bet on the fact that there is someone (or something) out there, investigating it on your behalf—and Dan Schreiber collects their latest findings. From the Silicon Valley tech billionaires currently trying to work out whether or not the universe is one giant video game simulation to the self-proclaimed community of Italian time-travelers who are trying to save the world from destruction; The Theory of Everything Else will act as a handbook for those who want to think differently.

An adventure novel about survival at sea from the Newbery Award–winning author of Northwind. “An epic, often lyrical journey of self-discovery.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) ALA/YALSA Best Book for Young Adults ALA Notable Book for Children ALA/YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers David thought he was alone, that the ocean around him was all there was of the world. The wind screamed, the waves towered, and his boat, the twenty-two foot fiberglass FROG, skidded and bucked and, each moment, filled deeper and grew heavier with sea water. David thought surely he was dead at fourteen. His uncle Owen, who had taught him about sailing safely, would be so angry. Owen had died only days ago, his last wish for David to take the FROG out on his own, and sail her beyond sight of the coast, and once there, scatter Owen’s ashes. David had done this the evening before, but he hadn’t thought of a storm roaring across the Pacific, or of the terror of being alone later in the dark hundreds of miles from home with no radio or flares and little food. He hadn’t thought of a shark attacking, or of the four killer whales, or the oil tanker large as a city about to sink him and the FROG . . . But in fact, David wasn’t alone at all. He’d had the FROG as a partner from the first—his uncle’s guiding spirit. He had only to learn that. “Paulsen’s spare prose offers an affecting blend of the boy’s inner thoughts and keen observations of the power of nature to destroy and to heal.” —School Library Journal

Philosophy didn't just drop out of the air. Discover how philosophers used each other's works to develop their own with CENGAGE ADVANTAGE BOOKS: VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY: A HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. Inside you'll be able to retrace philosopher's intellectual journeys and then figure out how to use that information in your own life. Plus, it's packed with stories, examples, illustrations, and study tools, so you'll be able to master the material with no problem.

The “extraordinary” true story of the St. Louis, a German ship that, in 1939, carried Jews away from Hamburg—and into an unimaginable ordeal (The New York Times). On May 13, 1939, the luxury liner St. Louis sailed from Hamburg, one of the last ships to leave Nazi Germany before World War II erupted. Aboard were 937 Jews—some had already been in concentration camps—who believed they had bought visas to enter Cuba. The voyage of the damned had begun. Before the St. Louis was halfway across the Atlantic, a power struggle ensued between the corrupt Cuban immigration minister who issued the visas and his superior, President Bru. The outcome: The refugees would not be allowed to land in Cuba. In America, the Brown Shirts were holding Nazi rallies in Madison Square Garden; anti-Semitic Father Coughlin had an audience of fifteen million. Back in Germany, plans were being laid to implement the final solution. And aboard the St. Louis, 937 refugees awaited the decision that would determine their fate. Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts have re-created history in this meticulous reconstruction of the voyage of the St. Louis. Every word of their account is true: the German High Command’s ulterior motive in granting permission for the “mission of mercy;” the confrontations between the refugees and the German crewmen; the suicide attempts among the passengers; and the attitudes of those who might have averted the catastrophe, but didn’t. In reviewing the work, the New York Times was unequivocal: “An extraordinary human document and a suspense story that is hard to put down. But it is more than that. It is a modern allegory, in which the SS St. Louis becomes a symbol of the SS Planet Earth. In this larger sense the book serves a greater purpose than mere drama.”

The bestselling author of Blue Latitudes takes us on a thrilling and eye-opening voyage to pre-Mayflower America On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz realizes he's mislaid more than a century of American history, from Columbus's sail in 1492 to Jamestown's founding in 16-oh-something. Did nothing happen in between? Determined to find out, he embarks on a journey of rediscovery, following in the footsteps of the many Europeans who preceded the Pilgrims to America. An irresistible blend of history, myth, and misadventure, A Voyage Long and Strange captures the wonder and drama of first contact. Vikings, conquistadors, French voyageurs—these and many others roamed an unknown continent in quest of grapes, gold, converts, even a cure for syphilis. Though most failed, their remarkable exploits left an enduring mark on the land and people encountered by late-arriving English settlers. Tracing this legacy with his own epic trek—from Florida's Fountain of Youth to Plymouth's sacred Rock, from desert pueblos to subarctic sweat lodges—Tony Horwitz explores the revealing gap between what we enshrine and what we forget. Displaying his trademark talent for humor, narrative, and historical insight, A Voyage Long and Strange allows us to rediscover the New World for ourselves.