ISBN Finding Your Way Without Map or Compass book Travel English 288 pages

I don't expect to find myself lost at sea, or lost on the Arctic ice sheet, or lost in the Gobi desert, but if I do I have an idea on how to find my way out now. I might get lost on a big Texas ranch though, and if I do I have a very good idea of how to find my way back now just by looking at the trees - more so than before I read this book.I bought it on a whim really, not because I need to know these techniques. Maybe that whim was out of a passing fancy to do some research on how people navigated tens of thousands of years ago. So I ordered it, opened it, and then stayed up a lot later than I should have three nights in a row as I devoured it.This book really delivers. I was fascinated by how the Polynesians navigated the gigantic Pacific Ocean thousands of years before the Europeans could build a boat. How they could find tiny little islands thousands of miles from anywhere before latitude and longitude and chronometers were a thought in anyone's mind. And the explanations are detailed. How no matter where the famous European sailors landed they found ancient cultures already in place. Even on those tiny little islands.Our ancestors knew navigation methods that modern man has not the slightest idea of, and this book explains what they knew and how they knew it. Along the way you learn some pretty cool skills, skills you are not likely to need, but if you ever do...you'll amaze your friends, conquer your enemies, and win the best looking women.It is an old book, written a long long time ago. Way before modern things like GPS were dreamed of. And that old-school style of writing is charming.This is an excellent book on many levels, a thoroughly enjoyable read, well written by a well spoken man, who lived a life of adventure that few of us could ever approach. You'll be informed, entertained, charmed, and learn a lot more about man's history of distribution than you'd at first think.