Man Against Nature

From Pliny the Younger's eyewitness description of the eruption of Vesuvius to a brilliant scholar's death from radiation poisoning, this remarkable collection of 46 firsthand accounts encompasses man's struggle to survive and conquer the forces of earthquakes, bubonic plague, cataclysmic fires, blizzards, tidal waves, floods, deadly insects, and waterspouts. Within these pages, readers can experience living for 45 seconds in a tornado, standing triumphant at the North Pole, battling a whale, bailing out of a plane at supersonic speed, crossing 800 miles of Antarctic sea in an open boat, and other exploits. Contributors include Roald Amundsen, Ernest Hemingway, Sir Edmund Hillary, Jaques-Yves Cousteau, Herodotus, Thor Heyerdahl, Charles Lindbergh, Sir Ernest Shackleton, and Orville Wright.