If your are seeking good books to grace your coffee tables this Christmas, then look no further than The Great Explorers and The Great Empires of Asia (both by Thames and Hudson, £24.99).

The explorers girdle the world under the editorship of Robin Hanbury-Tenison and lead an intelligent quest into uncharted worlds. The book is obviously selective but all the greats are there, from Columbus to Livingstone, from James Cook to Amundsen, conqueror of the South Pole while at the same time lamenting his rival Scott’s “terrible death”. The approach is different, too, with 40 biographical narratives based on their adventures, often scientific, on land and at sea, the polar and desert regions, even to the breaking of frontiers in space with Yuri Gagarin The book is especially interesting for its study of rarely known explorers such as Ney Elias who in 1873 shared a platform with Henry Morton Stanley of African fame to receive gold medals from the Royal Geographic Society.

Both were illustrious in their day, but while Stanley as a journalist could ride a Victorian wave on his discovery of the “lost” Livingstone on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, Elias offered even more valuable service to the British Empire with six major expeditions into central Asia as a government spy in the Great Game to protect India against the incursions of Russia.

Women are represented by Gertrude Bell, the great Arabist, archaeologist and poet. who was deeply involved in Middle East politics, and Marianne North, the botanist who began to travel the world at the age of 40 and whose beautiful drawings help to grace the book.

As well as the oceanic explorers like Vasco da Gama and Magellan, there are superlative treasures in the explorations of Lewis and Clark, who opened up the American West, Francis Younghusband who invaded Tibet and Francis Garnier who was obsessed with the Mekong. The commentators on this mosaic of adventure are a mixture of experts, from travel writers to historians. Between them they unravel the driving forces — the knowledge and endurance — that propelled the pioneers.

Asia is emerging once again as a force of economic and cultural power. That was its throne centuries ago and The Great Empires of Asia, edited by Jim Masselos, takes us on a journey into the past when the Mongols, the Chinese, Ottomans and Mughals literally ruled the world.

Once again experts take up the reins in their descriptions of the vast lands under empirical sway and the rulers who guided their fortunes, often through military conquest but later through creative achievement in a diverse range of fields.

This passionate book is illuminated with a marvellous array of paintings and portraits from each individual era, dominated by Genghis Khan and his unifying of the Mongolian tribes, Babur and the founding of the Mughal dynasty, the Ming dynasty which embraced the Great Wall and Forbidden City, the Persian and Khmer empires, and finally Japan, centring on the Meiji restoration.

In their decorative analysis of Asia over several centuries, the authors go beyond scholarship to give a bountiful review of its kingdoms that were a distinct challenge to Europe.