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Beyond the Known: How Exploration Created the Modern World and Will Take Us to the Stars Hardcover – November 12, 2019

by Andrew Rader (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 67 ratings
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From brilliant young polymath Andrew Rader—an MIT-credentialed scientist, popular podcast host, and SpaceX mission manager—an illuminating chronicle of exploration that spotlights humans’ insatiable desire to continually push into new and uncharted territory, from civilization’s earliest days to current planning for interstellar travel.

For the first time in history, the human species has the technology to destroy itself. But having developed that power, humans are also able to leave Earth and voyage into the vastness of space. After millions of years of evolution, we’ve arrived at the point where we can settle other worlds and begin the process of becoming multi-planetary. How did we get here? What does the future hold for us?

Divided into four accessible sections, Beyond the Known examines major periods of discovery and rediscovery, from Classical Times, when Phoenicians, Persians and Greeks ventured forth; to The Age of European Exploration, which saw colonies sprout on nearly continent; to The Era of Scientific Inquiry, when researchers developed brand new tools for mapping and traveling farther; to Our Spacefaring Future, which unveils plans currently underway for settling other planets and, eventually, traveling to the stars.

A Mission Manager at SpaceX with a light, engaging voice, Andrew Rader is at the forefront of space exploration. As a gifted historian, Rader, who has won global acclaim for his stunning breadth of knowledge, is singularly positioned to reveal the story of human exploration that is also the story of scientific achievement. Told with an infectious zeal for traveling beyond the known, Beyond the Known illuminates how very human it is to emerge from the cave and walk toward an infinitely expanding horizon.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    352 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Scribner
  4. Publication date
    November 12, 2019
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 1.1 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1982123532
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1982123536
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Has an air of authority as well as a lively pace….Good scientific speculation that will leave readers yearning to see how it turns out. ‘If the history of exploration has taught us anything,’ Rader writes, ‘it's that amazing things happen when humans force themselves to try something no one has done before.’ An astute—and highly flattering—view of human aspirations.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Expansive…packed with information, the work testifies to Rader’s extensive research into, and avid enthusiasm for, the subject.”
—Publishers Weekly

“An encompassing account…Exulting in the curiosity and audacity that have propelled past exploration, Rader will excite readers about the future.”
—Booklist

“A thrilling and irresistible history of human exploration, Andrew Rader’s Beyond the Known shows as much admiration for the Polynesians who conquered the Pacific in outrigger canoes as for the astronauts who will take us to distant planets. Celebrating discoverers from every continent, this is world history at its best.”
—Eugene Rogan, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of Oxford, and author of the international bestsellers, The Arabs: A History and The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East

“In Beyond the Known Andrew Rader achieves something almost as ambitious as the pioneers he writes about: he retraces the 10,000-year history of exploration, from the Stone Age to the Space Age, in a single book-sized expedition. As the centuries flew by, I learned something new on every page."
—Ken Jennings, Jeopardy! champion and New York Times bestselling author of Maphead

"Scintillating, coruscating, Beyond the Known shows just how powerful the human urge to travel, to explore, to move always has been and always will be. It is a light on the past—and for the future."
—Anthony Pagden, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and History at UCLA and author of The Burdens of Empire: 1539 to the Present

“Andrew Rader’s Beyond the Known is a smashing narrative about the history, the promise, and the innately human drive to explore, from antiquity to today to the coming Star Trek era. I could not put it down!"
—Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons Mission, and author of Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto

“Beyond the Known is an engaging, full-color route map showing us how we got here, and where we’re now destined to go.”
—Tim Marshall, New York Times bestselling author of Prisoners of Geography and The Age of Walls

About the Author

Andrew Rader is a Mission Manager at SpaceX. He holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from MIT specializing in long-duration spaceflight. In 2013, he won the Discovery Channel’s competitive television series Canada’s Greatest Know-It-All. He also co-hosts the weekly podcast Spellbound, which covers topics from science to economics to history and psychology. Beyond the Known is Rader’s first book for adults. You can find him at Andrew-Rader.com.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner (November 12, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1982123532
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1982123536
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.1 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 67 ratings

About the author

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Andrew Alan Rader

Andrew Alan Rader

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Andrew Rader is a mission manager at SpaceX with a PhD from MIT specializing in long-duration spaceflight. In 2013, he won the Discovery Channel’s competitive television series Canada’s Greatest Know-It-All. He also co-hosts the weekly podcast Spellbound, which covers topics from science to economics to history and psychology.

Andrew is the author of the children's book trilogy Epic Space Adventure, which includes Mars Rover Rescue and Europa Excursion, and also the book Rocket Science, which teaches the principles of aerospace engineering to children't aged 6-10. His new book Beyond the Known is a history of exploration from the Beginning of Humanity into our spacefaring future.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
67 global ratings
A five star book is one that leaves me mulling over ideas for days and weeks to come
5 Stars
A five star book is one that leaves me mulling over ideas for days and weeks to come
I loved the way this book followed the history of exploration from our humble beginnings in Africa to the migration of the Polynesians, the exploits of the Egyptians, the early sea-voyages of the Chinese through to the Romans, Vikings and Europeans.In BEYOND THE KNOWN, Dr. Rader examines the motivations and ramifications of vastly different cultures as they venture out into the world. He looks at how they waxed or waned based on their desire to explore. For me, that was the crux of the book—that for all our faults, exploration opens up new horizons, and not just in terms of trade but in ideas and ethics. There’s a twisted dichotomy to exploration. On one hand, the exploitation of others through cruelty and greed is the low point, but it also provides a melting pot for diverse thinking, which provokes change. It seems the allure of the horizon has always beckoned us on, calling to us, promising of a bright future.For me, the defining criteria of a great book isn’t what lies on each individual page, it’s whether it makes me think. A five star book is one that has me mulling over ideas for days and weeks to come, and Beyond the Known does that. It leaves you with a sense of awe at how far we’ve come and excitement for the next steps.Dr. Rader traces our growth as a species reaching for the stars, and makes the case that our past allows us to chart the future. One day, we’ll stand on Mars and soar out toward the stars, taking all we have learned with us. Exploration shapes us, it defines us. There’s something primeval about our desire to learn—whether that’s a child on a beach looking in rock pools or the Juno probe in orbit around Jupiter, we seek because we want to learn, and we’re better for that journey.
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Top reviews from the United States

Demetri
5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly concise narrative sets up the case for space exploration
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2020
Verified Purchase
The past is prelude. Some have critiqued this effort to describe 10,000 years of human exploration as superficial but to write so concisely and keep it engaging requires incredible skill. Depending on if you are historical novice or the subject matter expert it's either an accessible overview or handy refresher. The broad approach also allows the accomplishments of less recounted civilizations to assume their appropriate place among the familiar stories in the march of history. But the history itself is not the point, rather it provides the context in which the factors that drive human exploration can be examined. With the benefit of this perspective, fresh impetus can be given to the argument for progress in the human expansion into space - and when he's not writing books, Mr. Rader is working to take us there. Bravo on both counts.
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R. Ellis
5.0 out of 5 stars You Learn Something New Every Page
Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2021
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This book is like ten history books in one, with a glimpse into the future. Beyond the overall history, you learn small and interesting facts every page or two that you have always wondered about. Highly recommend this book for anyone that is a fan of history or geography. It also helps that the author is incredibly intelligent and attractive.
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Casey Wheeler
4.0 out of 5 stars Engaging Read
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2019
This is a well written book making for an engaging read that is more like fiction at times. The author breaks down the book into four parts in chronological order. The first three are on the discoveries made by early and more recent explorers and how they helped shape the world that we live in. The last section is devoted to the last great untapped area of exploration - space where a great deal is still left for future endeavors.

I recommend this book for those looking for an engaging read on the how our world was shaped by exploration and the opportunities for the future.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook page.
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Darrell Hanning
5.0 out of 5 stars Progress through Failure
Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2020
Verified Purchase
The author, Dr. Andrew Rader, takes the reader through several thousand years of man's innate desire to explore the unknown, and shows a consistent pattern not of spontaneous brilliance, but diligence through failure and determination. We don't always get it right, but if we continue to try, we definitely get better at it.
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Kieran O'Carroll
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and enlightening.
Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2021
Verified Purchase
Connects so many exploration waypoints across time. Fascinating. Well worth a read.
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Douglas
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommend!
Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2019
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I highly recommend this book for anyone who has a passion for understanding our human desire to explore new territories! What a great review of history with an eye into the future!!!
2 people found this helpful
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drewius
5.0 out of 5 stars Exploration is by definition pushing the limits
Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2019
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Of all the lenses I’ve learned history through, this is by far my favorite.
One person found this helpful
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Jeroen Heijmans
2.0 out of 5 stars Readable, yet superficial and uncritical history and future of exploration.
Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2019
I really wanted to like this book. I've been interested in the subjects covered for decades, so I didn't hesitate to order the book. The book is also enthousiastically written, and the writing has an appropriate tone and nice pace, making it enjoyable to read. Contentwise, though, I had two very major disappointments with the book:

1. For a book about exploration, it doesn't explore the subject very deeply. While Rader comes close to lots of interesting issues, trends and effects, he doesn't really discuss them. He often just mentions an issue and then moves on. For example, in one of the space chapters, Rader points out that much exploration was directly or indirectly state funded, and that the appearance of private space exploration companies may be a break with that trend. This is a very interesting observation, but there's no further discussion. Why weren't there lots of commercial explorers before? Why are there now? What would be benefits, what would be downsides?

The author obviously juxtaposes space exploration with earlier travellers, but what about the differences? For one, Ibn Battuta could just pack his bags and travel to a foreign land, but I cannot just take my rocket and fly up to Mars. What could this tell about space exploration? The book is silent.

When reading through the long history of exploration, many patterns emerge for the reader. Deaths of explorers, for example, or published travel journals/tales, or the nature of the people becoming explorers. Some qualitative discussion of this would have been great, or perhaps even a philosophical debate ("is exploration good or bad?") but the book doesn't offer anything.

2. Rader's fits the stereotype of an explorer: he's optimistic, sees opportunities, and doesn't spend a lot of time on criticism. But good history or science books (and this is both) should do better in my opinion.

This optimism takes many forms. Sometimes it's relatively minor, such as assuming an explorer visited a certain place even if that's not supported by evidence. Or picking the source that best fits the narrative, rather than looking at alternative explanations.

It becomes much more jarring in the last part of the book. As a Space X employee, Rader is obviously a fan of space travel. That's not a problem in itself, but it's not counterbalanced at all. For example, there's discussion of terraforming Mars, but no risks are discussed at all, which is a glaring omission given how poor a job we're currently doing keeping our own planet livable. In the chapter on the Spanish gold and silver extraction from the Americas, the economic impact is very briefly mentioned (as usual), but it's completely absent in the space chapters, despite the fact that, per Rader, mining a comet might yield more than the GNP of the earth.
6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Erik
2.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected
Reviewed in Sweden on July 23, 2022
Verified Purchase
This books covers the wide topic of exploration, and spends most of its time in the past.
For me it was not much new information but rather a lot of repetition, and the part about future exploration which I was most intereted in was very short.
For some people with less prior knowledge perhaps the whole book will be interesting, but for me it was sadly just a small part.
It was however well written and easy to follow.
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