Three monsters - racism, misogyny and ageism - preside over Michelle de Kretser's mesmerising and innovative novel.

The first accessible, authoritative and complete account of Vasco da Gama's historic and audacious attempt to seize the spice routes and re-conquer the Holy Land.

The story of the pioneering anthropologists and their adventures among civilisations that were first thought of as being primitive and savage. What they discovered, however, would change the way we think about ourselves.