Great cities in ruins, lost in the jungles of Central America and Mexico. Who would have built these cities? It would take more than a century and two extraordinary people to uncover the secrets of ancient Maya. The american John Lloyd Stephens, together with his english companion Frederick Catherwood, enbarked upon the first of two epic voyages to central america in 1839. Facing many dangers and illnesses, they returned from the mysterious land with extraordinary stories and breath taking images from a once great civilization of native americans. One hundread years later, Mayan archaeology had made enormous advances, although the inscriptions that adorn the Mayan ruins had not been completely decyphered. It would be the extraordinary studies of the russian Tatiana Proskouriakoff, a woman in a world of men, that would reveal the true lives of the Maya to the world.

In 1858, a young French naturalist, Henri Mouhot, set out to discover new animal species in Southeast Asia. Instead, he stumbled on the lost city of Angkor. Uncovering temple after temple hidden by jungle, Mouhot wrote a stirring account of Asia's most bewitching and romantic ruins, sparking an explosion of interest around the world.