Unexpected Eloquence

The National Geographic archive, long renowned as a mother lode of superb photography and fascinating information, has also yielded the wonderful writing that stands alone in this collection.

From the Field presents a wide-ranging selection of writings by world-class figures: novelists and naturalists, poets and presidents, explorers and adventurers, and pioneers. Each piece is a gem of its kind; taken together they add up to a chronicle of a hundred years of discovery and a capsule history of National Geographic itself.

Here's just a glimpse of the riches that you'll find among the scores of authors and articles collected in this wonderful anthology:

Alexander Graham Bell Aerial Locomotion


Joseph Conrad Geography and Some Explorers


David Lamb: A Season in the Minors

Charles A. Lindbergh To Bogota and Back by Air


Archibald MacLeish The Thrush on the Island of Barra


James Fallows: Vatican City

Diane Ackerman: In Praise of Squirrels

Jane Goodall The Imperiled Mountain Gorilla


William O. Douglas West from the Khyber Pass


Theodore Roosevelt Wild Man and Wild Beast in Africa


Amelia Earhart My Flight from Hawaii


Geoffrey C. Ward India's Wildlife Dilemma


Robert E. Peary The Discovery of the Pole


Willie Morris: Faulkner's Mississippi

William Least Heat-Moon Oregon's Outback


Barry Lopez: California Desert

David Remnick Moscow: The New Revolution


Paul Theroux: Down the Zambezi