Conquerors of Time: Exploration and Invention in the Age of Daring - Couverture souple

Gives us the whole caboodle, every innovation, all the inventors and explorers in one great teeming bundle of discovery... Like a true inventor himself, Fishlock has assembled the best and most alluring set of components one could wish for. (Guardian)

Fishlock's brio and broad vision matches those of his subjects and makes for a rattling good read. (Daily Mail)

An industrial crucible spouting several centuries' worth of bubbling global history... the contents stay fluid but coherent, keeping a strong sense of the hell-for-leather exuberance of this daring age, when exploration and invention went hand in calloused hand. (Geographical Magazine)

Fishlock is a master of fluid prose.. the reader cannot fail to enjoy the ride (Spectator)

Fishlock's dashing account of the relationship between invention and empire... [contains] excitement and powerful character delineation. (Sunday Times)

Factfilled and highly evocative... the sheer romance of the story is irresistible (Justin Marozzi, Sunday Telegraph)

His tale is mostly of the 19th century, told with such enthusiasm and pace that you might feel yourself short of breath. He is a vivid and elegant writer... Even perhaps familiar figures such as Burnel and Bligh of The Bounty spring vigorous and fresh out of the absorbing progress of the narrative. Enormous scope, fascinating detail; this is a whale of a book (New Scientist)

A rich and entertaining account... full of action and packed with larger-than-life characters. (Sunday Herald)

An intriguing and suggestive tapestry (The Scotsman)

Trevor Fishlock's enjoyable book ... sparkles with fun and entertainment ... He has an excellent eye for detail (The Independent)

Trevor Fishlock puts the reader before the mast, on the dusty road, on the sledge, in the stagecoach and the howdah and aboard the clanking pioneer steamer. It is a thrilling journey.

Here are the men of the Arctic ice, the desert fire, the jungles and the seas. Here are the engineers who bridge the chasms, build the roads and railways, fashion the machines, lay the cables and string the telegraph wires. Here, too, are the doctors groping for answers to terrible diseases, surveyors and cartographers slowly making sense and shape of the world, the unsung armies of labourers, and the artists and photographers who bring the stories home. Through it all, the vital supporting cast in the saga of triumph and frequent failure, are the elephants, horses, mules, camels, bullocks and sledge dogs.

Conquerors of Time celebrates the courage, energy, innovation, resourcefulness and grand ideas of these pioneers. It wonders at the imperatives, beliefs and sheer confidence that powered their extraordinary achievements. Packed with detail, it is a narrative both vivid and moving.