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Zusatztext "A remarkably vivid picture of the agonies and feuds! as well as joys! of polar exploration . . . a fascinating book."--The New York Times "An extraordinarily rich reading experience."--Los Angeles Times Informationen zum Autor Roland Huntford is the former Scandinavian correspondent for the London Observer . He is the bestselling author of two critically acclaimed biographies of Ernest Shackleton and Fridtjof Nansen as well as the novel Sea of Darkness. He lives in Cambridge, England. Paul Theroux 's highly acclaimed novels include Blinding Light, Hotel Honolulu, My Other Life, Kowloon Tong, and The Mosquito Coast . His renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Dark Star Safari, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, and The Happy Isles of Oceania . He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod. Klappentext At the beginning of the twentieth century, the South Pole was the most coveted prize in the fiercely nationalistic modern age of exploration. In the brilliant dual biography, the award-winning writer Roland Huntford re-examines every detail of the great race to the South Pole between Britain's Robert Scott and Norway's Roald Amundsen. Scott, who dies along with four of his men only eleven miles from his next cache of supplies, became Britain's beloved failure, while Amundsen, who not only beat Scott to the Pole but returned alive, was largely forgotten. This account of their race is a gripping, highly readable history that captures the driving ambitions of the era and the complex, often deeply flawed men who were charged with carrying them out. THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH is the first of Huntford's masterly trilogy of polar biographies. It is also the only work on the subject in the English language based on the original Norwegian sources, to which Huntford returned to revise and update this edition. Leseprobe Introduction Paul Theroux What most people know of the conquest of the South Pole is that Captain Scott got there and then died heroically on the return journey; that when the Polar party lay tent-bound and apparently doomed, Captain Oates unselfishly said, "I am just going outside and may be some time," and took himself out to die, so that his comrades might live; that Scott represented self-sacrifice and endurance, and glorious failure, the personification of the British ideal of plucky defeat. Scott's expedition was essentially scientific; he was beset by bad weather. Roald Amundsen is a sort of afterthought: Oh, yes, the dour Norwegian actually got to the Pole and planted his flag first, but that's a detail; he was very lucky and a little devious. So much for the Pole. Mr. Huntford proves all of this wrong, and much more, to boot. Thus, the kerfuffle. It is a measure of the power of this book that when it first appeared in Britain, it caused an uproar; and a few years later, a television series that was adapted from it created a flurry of angry letters to newspapers and a great deal of public discussion in which the book was rubbished and its author condemned--even vilified in some quarters for suggesting that Fridtjof Nansen was engaged in a sexual affair with Kathleen Scott while her husband lay freezing in his tent. But what had Mr. Huntford actually done? He had written a riveting account of two expeditions intending simultaneously to achieve the South Pole. His book is well documented, soberly and sometimes wryly written, much of it is thrilling, some of it as dramatic as exploration can possibly be, and to my mind few things are more dramatic. But the Polar quest was not just exploration, a journey of discovery. It was indeed (although Scott tried to deny it) an unambiguous race to be the first at the South Pole. National pride was at stake--Norwegian and British; two different philosophies of travel and d...
