A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler

Journalist Jason Roberts has won critical praise for A Sense of the World. His biography of "the blind traveler" has been named a Best Book of the Year by numerous publications, including the Washington Post.

Although blinded as a young Naval lieutenant, James Holman became one of the world's most prolific and observant travelers. He was known simply as the Blind Traveler -- a solitary, sightless adventurer who, astonishingly, fought the slave trade in Africa, survived a frozen captivity in Siberia, hunted rogue elephants in Ceylon, and helped chart the Australian outback.

James Holman (1786-1857) became "one of the greatest wonders of the world he so sagaciously explored," triumphing not only over blindness but crippling pain, poverty, and the interference of well-meaning authorities (his greatest feat, a circumnavigation of the globe, had to be launched in secret).

Once a celebrity, a bestselling author, and an inspiration to Charles Darwin and Sir Richard Francis Burton, the charismatic, witty Holman outlived his fame, dying in an obscurity that has endured -- until now.