Records the work, travels, and adventures of one of the last of the great British explorers, a man who served in both world wars and carved out a special niche in science through his studies of desert sands.

Sand, Wind, and War: Memoirs of a Desert Explorer

Biographies & Memoirs

Bagnold, Ralph A.

Historical

University of Arizona Press

Sand, Wind, and War records the work, travels and adventures of one of the last of the great British explorers, a man who served in both world wars and carved out a special niche in science through his studies of desert sands. Ralph Alger Bagnold was born in 1896 into a military family and educated as an engineer. Posted to Egypt in 1926, he was one of a group of officers who adapted Model T Fords to desert travel and in 1932 made the first east-west crossing—6,000 miles—of the Libyan desert. Bagnold established such a name for himself that in World War II he was again posted to Egypt where he founded and trained the Long Range Desert Group that was to confound the German and Italian armies. Bagnold’s fascination with the desert included curiosity over the formation of dunes, and beginning in 1935 he conducted wind tunnel experiments with sand that led to the book The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes. Eventually, he was to see his findings called on by NASA to interpret data on the sands of Mars. He devoted subsequent research to particle flow in fluids, and also served as a consultant to Middle Eastern governments concerned with the interference of sand flow in oil drilling. Sand, Wind, and War is the life story of a man who not only helped shape events in one part of the world but also contributed to our understanding of it. It is a significant benchmark not only in the history of science, but also in the annals of adventure.

Sand, Wind, and War: Memoirs of a Desert Explorer (Century Collection)

Libyan Sands: Travel in a Dead World

Hippocrene Books

A Collection of Hallmark Papers by R.A. Bagnold

The Physics of Sediment Transport by Wind and Water: A Collection of Hallmark Papers

Science & Math

Earth Sciences

Amer Society of Civil Engineers

Ralph Bagnold was among a group of eccentric British explorers who in the 1930's explored the deserts of North Africa using Model T Fords. This book describes his journeys into the region known as the Western Desert of Egypt or the Libyan Sahara. He is a central character in the group of explorers who would be later fictionalized in Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. Libyan Sands is an exploration of the Egyptian western desert and the Libyan Sahara on the eve of the Second World War.

Travel

Africa

Eland Publishing

The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes

Reference

Springer

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Books by Bagnold, Ralph A.