The Society for the History of Discoveries was formed to stimulate interest in teaching, research, and publishing the history of geographical exploration. Founded in 1960, the Society’s membership includes faculty and graduate students from a variety of academic disciplines as well as curators, archivists and librarians; non-affiliated or independent scholars; and laypersons who share their interests.
Our members study a wide range of fields of inquiry: history, literature, language, geography, biography, ethnography, cultural studies, cartography, geology, astronomy, archaeology, bibliography, and maritime studies, among others. We are interested in the processes and technologies used to undertake voyages of exploration, as well as the impact—contemporary and future—of the cultural exchanges and interactions that ensued, and how we study and document them. A glance at some of the past issues of our journal, Terrae Incognitae, will provide a sense of the broad scope of our interests.