The author, a yachtsman who has led a cross-Atlantic expedition to Greenland, studied the amazing incidence of 20th-century explorers and adventurers - sailors and mountain-climbers, polar explorers, pilots and the like - including Sir Francis Chichester, Robert Manry, Captain John Ridgeay, Thor Heyrdahl, and Maurice Herzog. These studies have convinced him that courageous, often heroic achievements are neither chance nor useless, but imply in the existence of man of a continuing quality, which he calls the Ulysses factor. It is made up of courage, strength, selfishness, imagination, discipline, endurance, and competitiveness. The author sees this as a special human trait and a hope for the future. Included is an index of 125 men and women who have contributed to twentieth-century exploration.