A round up of all the innovative post-war achievements that have pushed back the boundaries of the adventurous - on the world's oceans, across deserts, down rivers, up mountains, over the poles, up in balloons, out into space and down into caves. The author talked to most of the adventurous in this book to appraise their motivations, from Wilfred Thesiger crossing the empty quarter and Kon Tiki crossing the Pacific, to the first men on the moon, and taking in Blyth, Ridgway, Knox-Johnston, Chichester, Hunt Hillary, Bonatti, Messmer, Wally Herbert. It was the cave diving in upper Wharfedale which frightened him most and represented the ultimate unknowable. Chris Bonington is the author of "Montaineer", "The Everest Years; Everest, Unclimbed Ridge" and "Kongur, China's Elusive Summit".