From Publishers Weekly
Alexander Graham Bell didn't just invent the phone: he cofounded one of the world's great magazines. Bell and Gardiner Hubbard, a blue-blood Bostonian, launched the National Geographic Society in 1888. That fall, its journal first appeared, shedding light on subjects like volcanism and botany and establishing itself as an authority in scientific and technical arcana. The organization grew, but the magazine stalled until Gilbert H. Grosvenor, a young schoolteacher, signed on as editor, and the stories of the Grosvenor family and the magazine have been linked ever since. The organization and magazine grew steadily over the years, with more people, places and things for its members to discover. However, the magazine's growth often overshadowed subagendas of racism, sexism and conservatism within its offices, according to Poole. The 1950s and '60s brought rapid changes, as previously glossed-over subjects—domestic poverty, life under communism, apartheid—finally appeared in full color. Poole, recently retired as National Geographic's executive editor, maintains objectivity without sacrificing scope and detail; the book has been built with all the painstaking care you'd expect from a National Geographic article (and thus, it's also a bit abstruse). Recent magazine troubles, chronicled in the last chapter, may not interest everyone, but then, back in 1888, who besides Alexander Graham Bell knew a beetle's wing structure would be so fascinating? Photos. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
Ruled until recently by the nepotistic Grosvenor dynasty, National Geographic magazine here has its history narrated by a former editor. Poole is not, however, blinkered by his association with the publication and writes candidly about bigoted editors, vapid articles, and dumb business decisions. Combined with his insight into what has editorially made the yellow-bordered icon one of the most successful in the magazine industry, that frankness ensures the work is not just a dreary institutional history. National Geographic is tantamount to a public trust, and its millions of readers will be curious about how it ascended to that status. Poole credits the climb to the son-in-law and protege of Alexander Graham Bell, Gilbert Grosvenor, who established the magazine's editorial formula in the early 1900s and, as importantly, its financial foundation as part of the tax-exempt National Geographic Society. Poole notes how Grosvenor's racist sentiments affected the organization, then phases into the tutelages of son Melville and grandson Gilbert. Fans of the magazine will appreciate Poole's revealing examination of its evolution. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Paul Theroux
...a wonderfully subtle and exhaustive...portrait of an age and of an institution that is at times more Byzantine than American.


Geoffrey C. Ward
...Robert M. Poole proves himself an ideal guide: sure-footed, supremely knowledgeable, and eager to share all he knows.


The Economist, October 16, 2004
Poole...shows how five generations of a public-spirited family...converted a boring academic journal into an internationally loved magazine...


Booklist, October 1, 2004
Fans of the magazine will appreciate Poole's revealing examination of National Geographic's evolution.


Book Description
For more than one hundred years, the National Geographic Society has brought "the world and all that is in it" to millions worldwide. Through its unparalleled research, exploration, publications, and photography, the organization and its magazine have, in many ways, defined how we see the world. Now Robert Poole's Explorers House gives a vibrant, behind-the-scenes look at National Geographic, from its start in 1888 to its evolution into one of the most esteemed and iconic American institutions.

The story of the National Geographic is a family story of a media dynasty to rival the Sulzbergers or Luces. The Grosvenors, along with Alexander Graham Bell, who was linked to the family by marriage, created the institution's photography-based monthly, and the family has been on the masthead since the McKinley administration. Content to stay in the shadows, however, they have remained modestly obscured from public view while their media empire has grown to reach some forty million readers and viewers each month. The Grosvenor and Bell family history is not merely the story of the National Geographic; it is a captivating view of the sweep of American scientific, geographic, and political history since the late nineteenth century, rendered in fascinating human terms by Poole.

Moreover, Explorers House shows the inside workings of the magazine's editorial process, providing an unprecedented look behind some of National Geographic's ground-breaking articles and explorations-from Cousteau's famous Calypso voyages to the origins of Jane Goodall's research on chimpanzees to the institution's 1963 Mt. Everest expedition, the first to place an American on the summit. We also hear of the writers and photographers who are larger than life figures themselves, such as Luis Marden, the writer-photographer who unearthed the remains of the H.M.S. Bounty off Pitcairn Island, among many other feats.

Explorers House presents the National Geographic from the inside out-from its remarkable founding family to the very ends of the earth it investigates.


About the Author
Robert M. Poole retired as Executive Editor of National Geographic in 2001 after a twenty-one-year career as a writer and editor there. In addition to his work for National Geographic, Poole has contributed articles to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Congressional Quarterly, Preservation, and Fly Fisherman. Before joining the National Geographic staff in 1980, he was a newspaper correspondent specializing in national politics and the environment. He is a former fellow at the Washington Journalism Center.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
The history of the National Geographic Society is really the story of a family dedicated to bringing steadily advancing knowledge of the earth to a general readership. Founder Gardiner Hubbard construed the term "geography" rather broadly, including anything animal, vegetable or mineral, residing on land, in the sea, or in the clouds. The advent of the magazine launched a successful and influential enterprise, one that sent explorers and adventurers across the globe to brave ocean depths and live among foreign tribes. Upon Hubbard's death, his widow prevailed upon her son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell, to take the helm. Bell later passed it along to his own son-in-law, Gilbert Grosvenor, whose family continued to dominate the administration of the Society for most of a century.

Poole is eminently qualified to detail this history; he recently retired as executive editor of the magazine, ending a 21-year career there. The fruit of his labors is a fascinating, assiduously researched, and liberally documented history that mimics the engaging style of the magazine itself. Following the chronology of the magazine, Poole introduces readers to myriad idiosyncratic personalities - not only the explorers themselves, but the members of an unforgettable media dynasty whose work has shaped global impressions for generations of readers. (Holiday 2004 Selection)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Alexander Graham Bell resisted, but his family held firm - he would inherit the leadership of the recently established National Geographic Society. He came to relish his role as its guiding force, and over the next century he and his descendants built the Society into one of the most iconic organizations in the world, its yellow-bordered magazine as recognizable as the Nike swoosh of the Coca-Cola script. Explorers House is the first authoritative critical history of the National Geographic Society and its founding family, the Grosvenors, a media dynasty to rival the Sulzburgers, the Luces, or the Grahams." Drawing on unprecedented access to personal correspondence and to the magazine's archives, Robert M. Poole brings the tale of the family and the National Geographic to life. Here readers find the inside stories behind the groundbreaking discoveries that helped shape our view of the world, from Robert Peary's controversial North Pole claim to Jacques Cousteau's famous Calypso voyages, from Louis and Mary Leakey's research on human origins to Jane Goodall's studies of chimpanzees, from the first American ascent of Mount Everest to the dive that unearthed the remains of the HMS Bounty off Pitcairn Island.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Alexander Graham Bell didn't just invent the phone: he cofounded one of the world's great magazines. Bell and Gardiner Hubbard, a blue-blood Bostonian, launched the National Geographic Society in 1888. That fall, its journal first appeared, shedding light on subjects like volcanism and botany and establishing itself as an authority in scientific and technical arcana. The organization grew, but the magazine stalled until Gilbert H. Grosvenor, a young schoolteacher, signed on as editor, and the stories of the Grosvenor family and the magazine have been linked ever since. The organization and magazine grew steadily over the years, with more people, places and things for its members to discover. However, the magazine's growth often overshadowed subagendas of racism, sexism and conservatism within its offices, according to Poole. The 1950s and '60s brought rapid changes, as previously glossed-over subjects-domestic poverty, life under communism, apartheid-finally appeared in full color. Poole, recently retired as National Geographic's executive editor, maintains objectivity without sacrificing scope and detail; the book has been built with all the painstaking care you'd expect from a National Geographic article (and thus, it's also a bit abstruse). Recent magazine troubles, chronicled in the last chapter, may not interest everyone, but then, back in 1888, who besides Alexander Graham Bell knew a beetle's wing structure would be so fascinating? Photos. Agent, Melanie Jackson. (On sale Oct. 25) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

For over a century, National Geographic has graced the shelves of millions of home libraries, known for its stunning photography and in-depth articles. The magazine's history turns out to be equally lively and entertaining. This behind-the-scenes look at the popular magazine and the society from which it sprang is adeptly told by Poole, retired executive editor of the magazine. He delves into how founder Gardner Green Hubbard saw a need to share and promote geographic research and exploration, and how subsequent family members like the famous inventor Alexander Graham Bell and Gilbert H. Grosvenor shaped and expanded the society's mission and the magazine's circulation through skillful leadership. Poole highlights how a family legacy impacted the institution's success and longevity. From its high standards in membership selection to uncompromising editorial philosophy, the society and the magazine have reflected both the positive goals ("diffusion of geographic knowledge") and negative aspects (racism and sexism) of this family of leaders. Poole's book reads like an intriguing family saga while remaining a well-researched text. For all libraries.-Donna Marie Smith, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

The former executive editor of its magazine provides a candid history of the National Geographic Society's vision and politics. In 1888, wealthy Washington lawyer Gardiner Greene Hubbard gathered together a group of men and suggested forming a society to advance popular geographical knowledge through lectures and a magazine. He sowed the seeds of the National Geographic Society, but its crucial bearings were set after Hubbard's death, when son-in-law Alexander Graham Bell reluctantly assumed the society's presidency, extended the organization beyond the clubby confines of Washington, and pushed the magazine to the forefront of operations, championing pictorial content as a vital element of popular appeal. In this gratifyingly evenhanded chronicle of the society's personalities and initiatives, Poole fairly and thoroughly profiles its leading figures, their strengths and many weaknesses, the positive and negative role played by nepotism. (Bell's son-in-law, Gilbert H. Grosvenor, and grandson Melville Grosvenor ran the magazine and the society through the late 1960s.) The author also details the society's sponsorship of such figures as Jane Goodall and the Leakeys, and the evolution of the magazine. Changes did not come quickly to the institution, least of all to the editorial content of the magazine; Poole frankly refers to lackluster prose and drifts into racism and anti-Semitism (which were institutional problems as well) that led in 1937 to a pro-Nazi article, "the biggest embarrassment in the history of the National Geographic Society." Life at National Geographic got hopping in the 1980s, with a whole new group of editors and writers, among them Poole; although he writes with surenessof the organization's past, it is in covering the past 20 years, with all the clashing of wills, that Poole guides readers with special acumen through the mazelike backroom politics. A natty tour of the society's house: closets, skeletons, and all. Agent: Melanie Jackson/Melanie Jackson Agency

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Fascinating from beginning to end. It would be hard to imagine a more thorough and absorbing history of a great institution. — Bill Bryson

Explorer's House is a delight, a vivid, elegantly written chronicle of the iconic institution that for more than a century has helped millions of Americans understand-and sometimes misunderstand-their world. It is a story with enough unexpected twists and turns and exotic characters to rival any of the expeditions mounted by the National Geographic, and in telling it, Robert M. Poole proves himself an ideal guide: sure-footed, supremely knowledgeable, and eager to share all he knows. — Geoffrey C. Ward

At last, someone has ripped away the veneer of spun sugar and told the truth about the National Geographic Society. And who better for the job than Bob Poole-twenty-year veteran insider, superb writer and diligent researcher? Explorers House is fascinating and important, an honest account of the rise and fall of an American icon. — Peter Benchley

This book delighted me. It is much more than the story of a magazine. It is a wonderfully subtle and exhaustive-and even shocking-portrait of an age and of an institution that is at times more Byzantine than American. It is also the history of a very big and very bossy family. — Paul Theroux

Robert M. Poole's wonderful history of National Geographic teems with delights-Whistlerian portraits of the eccentric amateurs who made the magazine, stirring tales from the Brigadoon that is its headquarters, even moments of darkness resulting from power struggles, broken friendships, and the recent intrusion into the sunny kingdom of realists with M.B.A.s who do not understand that the Geographic's stock-in-trade is its incurable enthusiasm for the world and all that is in it. Poole's deft pen, insider's knowledge, and keen eye for the telling detail make more than a century of the magazine's history fly by. Readers will want to keep this book just as the Geographic's forty million monthly readers save every issue of the magazine, as something to go back to, something to trust, something for their children. — Charles McCarry

Caroline Alexander

In this amusing and highly readable account, Bob Poole explores the history of the family and institution that has explored so much of Planet Earth. While giving the grand sweep of this grand enterprise, Explorer's House is ultimately made memorable by the telling details that could only have been available to an affectionate, but watchful insider. A great journey. — author of The Bounty and The Endurance