Renaissance writers and thinkers modified the idea of the monk’s cell to create refuges in which books were the only company.

Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge completed the “Three Poles Challenge,” becoming the first person to reach the North Pole, ...

like Petrarch, who wrote about a 1336 ascent of Mont Ventoux, familiar to Tour de France fans for its brutal climbs. “After the North Pole” catalogs a litany of those who walked, sailed ...