With Scott In The Antarctic

Details the expedition of Robert Falcon Scott and his British team to the South Pole in 1912.

Examines Antarctica and Robert Scott's epic expedition to the South Pole.

Features Captain Scott's account of his tragic race with Roald Amundsen for the South Pole thrilled the world in 1913. Captain Scott's account of his expedition to the South Pole in 1910-12 was first published in 1913. This edition includes a list of the changes made to Scott's original text before publication.

Historian David Crane, with full access to the explorer’s papers, diaries, and expedition records, gives us an illuminating portrait of Robert Falcon Scott that is more nuanced and balanced than any we have had before. In reassessing Scott’s life, Crane is able to provide a fresh perspective on not only the Discovery expedition of 1901—4 and the Terra Nova expedition of 1910—13, but his remarkable scientific achievements and the challenges of his tumultuous private life. Neither foolhardy dilettante, nor the last romantic champion of his age, Scott is presented as a man of indomitable courage and questionable judgment. The result is an absolutely compelling portrait of a complicated hero.

The South Pole is a book by Roald Amundsen and it represents an interesting first-hand account of the Norwegian expedition's successful attempt to reach the South Pole in 1911. Amundsen spends a great deal of time talking about logistics and placing of depots in preparation for his polar attempt all the way from the preparation leading up to the initial sea voyage, the voyage itself and then the establishing of a camp at the Antarctic. Although they were lucky with the weather, and Amundsen attributed the success of the expedition to "good luck", it is obvious that the Norwegian expedition was well prepared and ready for the troubles ahead; the equipment, the sledges with well-trained dogs, the supply depots with seal meat at regular intervals along the route, the sunglasses to avoid snow blindness; it was all thought of in advance.

The myth of Scott of the Antarctic, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, icon of fortitude and courage who perished with his fellow explorers on their return from the South Pole on March 29th, 1912, is an enduring one, elevated, dismantled and restored during the turbulence of the succeeding century. Until now, the legend of the doomed Terra Nova expedition has been constructed out of Scott's own diaries and those of his companions, the sketches of 'Uncle Bill' Wilson and the celebrated photographs of Herbert Ponting. Yet for the final, fateful months of their journey, the systematic imaging of this extraordinary scientific endeavor was left to Scott himself, trained by Ponting. In the face of extreme climactic conditions and technical challenges at the dawn of photography, Scott achieved an iconic series of images; breathtaking polar panoramas, geographical and geological formations, and action photographs of the explorers and their animals, remarkable for their technical mastery as well as for their poignancy. Lost, fought over, neglected and finally resurrected, Scott's final photographs are here collected, accurately attributed and catalogued for the first time: a new dimension to the last great expedition of the Heroic Age and a humbling testament to the men whose graves still lie unmarked in the vastness of the Great Alone.

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