The Last Secrets: The Final Mysteries of Exploration

"The Last Secrets: The Final Mysteries of Exploration" by John Buchan is a historical look at the great explorations of the early 1900s. It tells how explorers solved many of the world's geographical mysteries, but also how exploration itself was changing. Instead of just seeking adventure, people were using science to learn more about the world. The book starts with the story of Lhasa, a city in Tibet that used to be a big secret, and in 1904, a British expedition went there, becoming the first to enter it in centuries. The author describes the hard journey and explains how, when the city was finally revealed, it wasn't so mysterious anymore. This story shows the book's main ideas: that exploration was changing, and that there were fewer and fewer unknown places left in the world.