A HISTORY OF OUTDOOR LEADERSHIP In 1965, in the Wind River mountains of Wyoming, legendary mountaineer Paul Petzoldt founded a new school dedicated to the notion that the wilderness classroom could teach leadership. In the fifty years since, the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) has embraced and explored the unknown, leading over a quarter of a million students through transformative educational experiences both vast in scale and deeply personal. Graduates of NOLS are leaders across society: conservation, exploration, public policy, education, land management, business, and wilderness medicine. And they carry firsthand appreciation for the value of protecting our wild planet for generations to come. Built by dedicated staff and the legacy of its students, NOLS has diversified and expanded to become a global presence and an industry leader. As the school moves into the future, the name of NOLS will continue to represent, as it always has, leadership, expertise, and the power of the wilderness. It is with one eye on the future that NOLS celebrates its past. This is its story.

Discoveries and conquests, which so frequently go hand in hand, are of the greatest importance to the history of mankind. Like a combination of streams, they break through natural boundaries and the rocky dams of ages, and open a way for the incessant progress of civilization through new and untrodden paths. Yet glorious enterprises, costly equipments, and hazardous exploits, may conceal a swelling kernel of material interest beneath a husk of fine reasons, as if these constituted the primitive motive. Thus Mohammed Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt, has done very much for science, especially geography, without even thinking of it, whose comprehensive relations, with respect to the higher requirements of mankind, lie far beyond the limits of his ideas. Neither has he honoured with his study the hieroglyphics in the Biban el Moluk near Thebes, where the black Kushi bring golden rings as tribute to the Pharaohs. Yet he knows, and is so exceedingly fond of these rings (Okiën), which in Ethiopia even now serve instead of money, that, so far as the destroying arms of this much-famed satrap reach in Belled-Sudan, no more okiën are to be seen. Moreover, he is making exertions to follow and secure those that have retreated and eluded his grasp, which affords an excellent opportunity for extending our knowledge of the countries and people of East and Central Africa. He sacrificed his son Ismail, and, through the Defterdar, devastated and depopulated this beautiful country, merely to secure to himself the way to the gold regions; though he might have attained his object much better, had he sought to elevate the country in every possible way, and to re-establish mercantile confidence. For, from the earliest ages, a market has existed here, to which gold comes, first hand, in the leaf and grain form, by barter with the inhabitants of the interior, just as it has been separated from the sand of the torrents, and kept in quills or horns of the gazelle. In Sennaar or Kordofan it is found in rings of half and whole okiën and in gold wire, but it is frequently changed, by weighing and melting it down, into ingots or bars, which Mohammed Ali just as little contemns. But “Turks:”—in this one word is included all and every answer to questions on the condition of the people. We shrug up our shoulders, and say “Turks.” Whoever has lived some time amongst them must, from the clearest conviction, confess the perfect incapacity of these Turks for advancing and civilizing the countries under their government, and their indifference to the interests, nay, even their premeditated murder of the nations infested by them. The complete depravity of the Asiatic world, even in the lifeless and powerless form of a mass dissolved in corrupt fermentation, always effervesces strongly into cruelty with the wide-spread barbarians of the East, and displays itself in bestial vices, to the disgrace of mankind and scorn of the sacred bond of nations. A truly savage nature is theirs, which, from Montenegro to the east and south, repels all western civilization, and would seek a kind of national fame by ridiculous reactions against it, as a hated and even despised foreign state of manners and life, in order to cover their nakedness and infamy, and to cloak their empty ostentation. But the Turk of Egypt is the outcast of his countryman in Turkey itself. Egypt, for example, is so decried in Albania, on account of its corruption, that the Arnaut returning from thence seldom obtains a wife, even if he have his girdle full of red gold.

The most complete memoir or primary account in English of two of the most important phases of the Thirty Years' War, Monro's Expedition is a regimental history, a guide to would-be mercenary officers, a social history, and a window into an earlier era. Although the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) ended three and a half centuries ago, it continues to intrigue readers as one of the most devastating wars in modern European history. Initially a religious/political confrontation, the conflict soon expanded into a continent-wide series of wars. Monro's account of his experiences is one of the most important primary sources of the period. From the creation of new tactical formations to improved military technology, the sheer magnitude of the crisis required new methods of waging war. Firsthand accounts by the combatants themselves are virtually non-existent, as rank and file soldiers were rarely literate, and their officers were only slightly more educated. Monro was a Scot who wrote proudly of his Scottish regiment and of his Scottish soldiers. Brockington's account retains the original spelling and punctuation and includes the original pagination within the new text for the benefit of readers searching for information cited elsewhere. Glossaries provide ready reference for place names, proper names, and archaic terms.

Ramon Muntaner's account of the bloody adventures of the Almogaver army under Roger of Flor in the eastern Mediterranean in the early fourteenth century, one of the most spellbinding narratives of medieval European literature. Before its definitive fall into Turkish hands, the Byzantine Empire was the target of adventurers of many nations. Outstanding among these groups was the Almogaver army led by Roger of Flor, composed of mercenaries hardened in thewar between the Catalan and Angevin dynasties for domination of Sicily. The Catalan presence in Constantinople aroused suspicion among the Greek nobility who assassinated Roger of Flor and tried to exterminate his men. The devastating reaction of those who escaped the slaughter led to Catalan control of broad swathes of the Empire, including Athens. Ramon Muntaner, one of the ringleaders of the expedition, recounted the adventures of the Almogaver army inthe eastern Mediterranean in the fascinating section of his Chronicle translated here. The preface is by N. D. Hillgarth. Dr. Robert D. Hughes is a translator and researcher with particular expertise in the fields of fine art, the history of ideas and Catalan culture. Published in association with Editorial Barcino

Johanna returns to Earth from her exploration mission with a heavy burden—the survival of two peoples is at stake, menaced by an all-devouring creature. Now she must convince mankind that helping the foreigners is rewarding—and at the same time, she must defeat the human opponents who threaten to destroy everything she ever built. Time is running out—will she be able to return, and if so, will she still find someone to save?