Voyages recounts the extraordinary feats of more than 20 daring maritime explorers, including Christopher Columbus, Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama, John Cabot, Giovanni da Verrazzano, Jacques Cartier, Martin Frobisher, Ferdinand Magellan, Francis Drake and James Cook. In narrating these explorers' tales, Gordon Miller touches on the great themes of maritime history, including the development of new maritime technologies, the extreme dangers of ships sailing into unknown waters, the rise and fall of the maritime empires, the courage (and often brutality) of life at sea, and the discovery of new continents, cultures and products.