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The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen's Race to the South Pole, Revised and Updated (Modern Library Exploration), by Roland Huntford
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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.
- Sales Rank: #101372 in Books
- Brand: Modern Library
- Published on: 1999-09-07
- Released on: 1999-09-07
- Ingredients: Example Ingredients
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x 1.30" w x 5.20" l, 1.30 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 640 pages
Amazon.com Review
On December 14, 1911, the classical age of polar exploration ended when Norway's Roald Amundsen conquered the South Pole. His competitor for the prize, Britain's Robert Scott, arrived one month later--but died on the return with four of his men only 11 miles from their next cache of supplies. But it was Scott, ironically, who became the legend, Britain's heroic failure, "a monument to sheer ambition and bull-headed persistence. His achievement was to perpetuate the romantic myth of the explorer as martyr, and ... to glorify suffering and self-sacrifice as ends in themselves." The world promptly forgot about Amundsen.
Biographer Ronald Huntford's attempt to restore Amundsen to glory, first published in 1979 under the title Scott and Amundsen, has been thawed as part of the Modern Library Exploration series, captained by Jon Krakauer (of Into Thin Air fame). The Last Place on Earth is a complex and fascinating account of the race for this last great terrestrial goal, and it's pointedly geared toward demythologizing Scott. Though this was the age of the amateur explorer, Amundsen was a professional: he left little to chance, apprenticed with Eskimos, and obsessed over every detail. While Scott clung fast to the British rule of "No skis, no dogs," Amundsen understood that both were vital to survival, and they clearly won him the Pole.
Amundsen in Huntford's view is the "last great Viking" and Scott his bungling opposite: "stupid ... recklessly incompetent," and irresponsible in the extreme--failings that cost him and his teammates their lives. Yet for all of Scott's real or exaggerated faults, he understood far better than Amundsen the power of a well-crafted sentence. Scott's diaries were recovered and widely published, and if the world insisted on lionizing Scott, it was partly because he told a better story. Huntford's bias aside, it's clear that both Scott and Amundsen were valiant and deeply flawed. "Scott ... had set out to be an heroic example. Amundsen merely wanted to be first at the pole. Both had their prayers answered." --Svenja Soldovieri
From Publishers Weekly
Huntford's chronicle of the rivalry between the United Kingdom's Robert Scott and Norway's Roald Amundsen to become the first explorer to reach the South Pole, poses a substantial challenge for adaptation into the audio format. The narrative presents events in a third-person expository fashion, offering precious few opportunities for dialogue among the real-life characters. American listeners may consider Tim Pigott-Smith's British accent distracting, while others might enjoy it as a relevant bit of flair. The story contains plenty of inherent drama, but the abridgment seems to veer off course in the concluding sections, as the long-term legacies of the two polar pioneers is rather rushed. A Modern Library paperback. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"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
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the South Pole was the most coveted prize in the fiercely nationalistic modern age of exploration. In this brilliant dual biography, the award-winning writer Roland Huntford reexamines every detail of the great race to the South Pole between Britain's Robert Scott and Norway's Roald Amundsen. Scott, who died 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.
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.
Jon Krakauer is the author of Into Thin Air, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Into the Wild. His work has appeared in many magazines, including Outside, Smithsonian, and National Geographic. He chose the books in the Modern Library Exploration series for their literary merit and historical significance--and because he found them such a pleasure to read.
Most helpful customer reviews
104 of 111 people found the following review helpful.
What really happened
By John L. Velonis
I recently read "Scott's Last Expedition", the edited version of his diaries from his South Pole expedition. This left me interested but unfulfilled: I wanted to learn more about Amundsen and the context for both expeditions, and to get more analysis of the bald facts as related in Scott's diaries. So I turned to Huntford's "The Last Place on Earth".
I was not disappointed. Huntford narrates the entire lives of both Amundsen and Scott, with edifying discursions on Nansen, Shackleton, and other Polar explorers. Huntford knows Norwegian and thus was able to consult primary sources for Amundsen's expedition directly; he provides many excerpts from the letters and diaries of both British and Norwegian expedition members. He also reveals some of the omissions in the edited version of Scott's diaries.
As a minor quibble, Huntford only rarely gives full dates, so that I found myself frequently having to page back a considerable way to remind myself which year or even which month it was. An appendixed chronology would have been immeasurably helpful.
As other reviewers have noted, the author is highly critical of Scott -- occasionally unfairly so, as when he notes that Scott's first depot journey brought "a ton of supplies not quite to 80 degrees South" where Amundsen's party had "moved three tons another two degrees of latitude closer to the Pole", omitting to mention that Amundsen started about a degree farther south than Scott. But from the evidence Huntford adduces, even without his interpretations, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Scott was criminally unprepared, negligent, and generally incompetent. It is not as though he had no information about what he would be facing -- his previous expedition encountered nearly all the same problems, but he seems not to have learned anything from it. Huntford shows how Scott's diaries and their careful editing combine to portray Scott in a much more favorable light than he deserves -- a case of the loser writing the history books.
Huntford also reveals what might charitably be called "traditional" attitudes toward women. For example, speaking of Kathleen Bruce, Scott's future wife, Huntford says, "She was a predatory female; more predatory than usual, that is." Fortunately, since nearly all the principal figures in the book are male, this only surfaces occasionally, as when Huntford describes Amundsen as having "an almost feminine sensitivity for the undertones and cross-currents on which a leader has to play".
Despite its flaws, "The Last Place on Earth" should be among the first books you read on Polar exploration, or true-life adventure in general. Once the race for the Pole was on, I found it as hard to put down as any fictional thriller.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Riveting
By drM
April 2000...Initial Review
I too grew up on the mythology of the "great" Scott. I understand the comments of readers who feel Mr. Huntford tends to be "relentless" in his criticism of Scott. On the other hand, when you have been duped by both the English government and Scott himself, perhaps Mr. Huntford's bias is understood. It is truly a fascinating book, contrasting the bumbling and asinine leadership of Scott with the methodical and "boringly" brilliant ways of Roald Amundsen. Not only is this a book about a true adventure, it is a study of psychology and leadership in general. Lest people are left with the impression that all ends in a fairytale manner, Huntford shows how, in a perverse way, the remaining days of Amundsen and Scott share the same sad fate. Apparently the loneliness of the Antarctic never left either man.
August 06. Since writing the review, I travelled to Antarctica. One of the members on the expedition is an historian...and many aboard had read Huntford's book. So the question often asked was how Scott could be such a bumbler. After numerous discussions, I finally came to the conclusion that it was more a matter of timing. By this I mean that Scott was a 19th Century explorer taking on a 20th Century task.....Bound to fail and limited by his background, arrogance etc. On the other hand, Amundsen was truly a 20th Century explorer, in the right era hence able to better handle the problems he faced. Does not make Scott any less of a pitiful character, but at least more understandable.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
I Really Loved This Book!
By George M. Shiffler III
This was not normal read for me. But I was recently in Oslo and went to see the Fram Museum while there. The expereince was a real eye-opener to the whole history of polar exploration. Most of us know that the poles were explored at the end of the 19th and the begining of the 20th centuries and that Amundsen and Scott had their race to pole around 1912. What most of us don't know and don't appreciate is what an incredible feat those journeys of discovery were. While walking the decks of the Fram, I was struck by the notion that I was touring the 19th century equivalent of the Apollo space capsules. In many ways, the polar expolarations of Amundsen, Nansen, Shackelton, and, yes, even Scott, were even more of technical achievement than going to the moon. At any rate, Huntford's book brings the whole history and experience of polar exploration vividly to life. I usually read before going to bed and often found myself up way past my usual bedtime devouring this book. I can't think of a better introduction to the whole sweep and drama of polar exploration. After this, I'm actually quite anxious to read some of Huntford's other books on the subject.
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