Island of the Blue Foxes - Disaster and Triumph on the World's Greatest Scientific Expedition

The story of the world's largest, longest, and best financed scientific expedition of all time, triumphantly successful, gruesomely tragic, and never before fully told

The immense 18th-century scientific journey, variously known as the Second Kamchatka Expedition or the Great Northern Expedition, from St. Petersburg across Siberia to the coast of North America, involved over 3,000 people and cost Peter the Great over one-sixth of his empire's annual revenue. Until now recorded only in academic works, this 10-year venture, led by the legendary Danish captain Vitus Bering and including scientists, artists, mariners, soldiers, and laborers, discovered Alaska, opened the Pacific fur trade, and led to fame, shipwreck, and "one of the most tragic and ghastly trials of suffering in the annals of maritime and arctic history.

About the author

Stephen R. Bown is author of The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen and White Eskimo: Knud Rasmussen's Fearless Journey into the Heart of the Arctic, which won the Williams Mills Award for the best book on the Arctic in 2016. His award-winning books, including Scurvy and Madness, Betrayal, and the Lash, have led to a reputation as "Canada's Simon Winchester."

Summary

The story of the world's largest, longest, and best financed scientific expedition of all time, triumphantly successful, gruesomely tragic, and never before fully told

Product details

• Authors: Stephen Bown, Stephen R Bown, Stephen R. Bown
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 11.01.2018
• EAN: 9780306825194
• ISBN: 978-0-306-82519-4
• No. of pages: 336
• Dimensions: 158 mm x 232 mm x 34 mm
• Weight: 535 g
• Series: A Merloyd Lawrence Book; Merloyd Lawrence Book
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; HISTORY / Expeditions & Discoveries, NATURE / Ecosystems & Habitats / Polar Regions, Expeditions: popular accounts, Conservation of wildlife & habitats, General and world history, North America (USA and Canada), Polar regions, Conservation of wildlife and habitats, Early 18th century c 1700 to c 1750, HISTORY / Russia / General