Expeditions: The Experts' Way

This is an interesting one. Published in 1977, it is better titled Expeditions in the late '70s: The Experts Way as there are vast sections which historically were accurate, but now are not! Obvious sections like photography equipment, communications and even navigation, where technology has moved forward in leaps and bounds in the circa 40 years since publication. Not that these sections are not interesting to read, they are just unreliable or unhelpful in the situation where the reader might be planning an expedition.

This books appeals to me only in the way that I thought it would be interesting to see how they can organise a book like this - it sets out to cover a massively wide range of circumstances, and to be a reliable source of information. Each chapter is written by a different specialist. Perhaps it might be expected that some of the sections take on a quite different written form - some a re list / bulletpoint form others are fully narrative and almost conversational, and full of short anecdotal explanations.

As an idea the section headings are;
1 Expedition Planning and Logistics (ha - produce an expedition letterhead for your correspondence!)
2 Expedition Health and Medicine
3 Jungle Exploration
4 Desert and Bush Exploration
5 The Polar Regions
6 Underwater Exploration
7 Ocean Sailing
8 River and White Water Exploration
9 Caving
10 Mountains
And an appendix on Kit & Equipment.

So from chapters 3 to 10 really make at attempt to give all terrain, all scenario expedition advice, and to a degree it delivers.

For me the book reads better as an interesting scan through some of the planning and background behind some much more interesting books on actual expeditions!

There are some interesting bits - surrounding by some dull bits! 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.