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Summary: Essentially a biography of Roald Amundsen
Review: This is an updated and revised version of the book originally published in 1979. Thrilling. Amazing. Wonderful. It made me interested in polar expeditions of that time. The book is not concentrated on the race itself - it is essentially a biography of Roald Amundsen, the greatest polar explorer of all times. The book should draw your attention, because it is so much different from the Anglo-Saxon polar literature, which glorifies their own heroes, whether or not they deserve that. In particular, Robert Falcon Scott is notoriously pictured as hero, a fallen angel, a victim of circumstances and/or others' unfairness. Oh yes, this is very British. The story is fascinating. In summary, a must read.
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Summary: I Really Loved This Book!
Review: 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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Summary: Excellent
Review: Having read both Scott's and Amundson's diaries and then Roland Huntfords book, I would suggest to anybody that they should be read in that order. Scott's legend was carried through the darkest years of the First World War as an example of selfless (and perhaps futile) heroism and for this reason the trip has become legend, at least in the United Kingdom.Amundson's diaries are almost boring by comparison. Only when one has read Huntford's excellent and (almost) impartial analysis does one realise the truth. He may have got a hammering from Scott supporters on writing the story, but it is better to bring the truth to light and, as the book demonstrates, learn from experience.
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Summary: Substance vs. Illusion
Review: In my career as a Navy Diver, I made trips to both the Arctic and Antarctic; lived on the ice, dove through the ice and had to share limited space with other souls. This is not an easy task in extreme places such as the polar regions which is why prior to any work we did, we planned meticulously what we would do. In Virginia, prior to our diving off of Greenland's America Fiord, we built our tent city on the grassy area surrounding our building and we built all our flooring and numbered them. We did extensive research in polar diving, tested our dry suits and even read Will Stieger's accounts to acquaint ourselves with another's perspective and experiences. It paid off, as we were hit by three hurricane force storms during our month of living on the ice. We all made it because we were prepared. When I first saw Scott's Hut at Cape Evans and saw the stalls for the ponies, I just shook my head...what a waste. In Antarctica, among the scientists and workers who summer there, Scott is still somewhat of a larger than life character. His debris is everywhere, from the mummified seal corpses that litter the Cape Evans area, to the cross atop Ob Hill, he is there. The Kiwi base next to McMurdo is called Scott Base. I was too busy with work there to really understand what a terrific blunder his expedition was. But after reading Huntford's book, and holding it against my own modern day experiences I was amazed at just how poorly Scott planned his trip. In the polar regions, you don't throw the dice hoping things fall your way. After flying to South Pole and being alllowed to sit up front with the pilot and navigator, I saw from high what Amundsen's journey looked like. I think now of his meticulous planning and his handling of personalities. I read the sign at the geographic south that quotes both men; Amundsen in his matter of fact, understated way, and Scott in his dramatic flair for defeat. What opposites! An incredible book and a reminder that to pose and beleive in one's self-fulfilling prophecy is to doom yourself and others. Why one of his men didn't kill him (Scott) is beyond me.
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Summary: Amundsen and Me.
Review: This is one of those books you are sad to finally finish. As I neared the end, seeing the dwindling number of pages,I remembered again the wonderful experience of reading a great book and realizing it had to have an end. It was excellent. Amundsen and Scott are thoroughly rendered. The foolishness of the British ideal of exploration is clearly presented. Conversely, Amundsen was a real professional who understood what he was up against and learned from a wide variety of sources what he had to do to be successful. I had previously read "Farthest North" by Nansen, so I was well prepared both for polar exploration and the thoroughness of the Norwegians in this area. By the way, in "Endurance" one of the books about Shackleton, when he finally returns to South Georgia, he states that every man, Norwegians all, at the fishing station lined up to shake his hand in recognition of his remarkable feat of reaching there in an open boat.This was a wonderful read for those who enjoy books dealing with exploration and courage. Also, it is extremely detailed and makes for a clear comparison of Amundsen and Scott. I don't mean at all to be anti-British, but how terribly unfortunate it was that this sense of heroic self sacrifice was carried forward to the first world war where so many many young men lost their lives for the same useless ideal. As one of their great poets has written, "War he said is toil and trouble, Honor but an empty bubble." To bad Scott and many others weren't more grounded in the reality of the situation.
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Summary: A Manual for Leadership
Review: Having seen the BBC production of this book when it aired on Masterpiece Theatre, I have always wanted to read the book. By chance I came across the newly published edition. I had trouble putting it down, even though I remembered most of the story and how it turned out. This book should be required reading for anyone in a leadership position who wants to get the most out of his/her team. I disagree with the reviewers that book is biased against Scott. Scott's reputation was based on mythology. The facts speak for themselves. He grounded two ships, had a mid-sea collisions with another. He nearly died from lack of planning twice in the Discovery fiasco. Finally, the diaries of those on the Terra Nova clearly show that he was incompetent. One of the dangers of the Scott legacy is promoting stupidity (disguised as bravery) as a virtue. Another important lesson from the book, adroitly pointed out by the author, is the bravery shown by Shackelton when he was only few days from the South Pole and decided to turn back, thus saving himself and his party. Scott didn't have that courage or insight.
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Summary: An instructive gem, now affordable in softcover. Get it.
Review: I first read this excellent work about ten years ago in the hardcover version (in my university library). I was fascinated and impressed by it, and have thought about it many times since. The series edited by Jon Krakauer has done a very good thing in releasing it in softcover. Naturally I did not waste a minute before purchasing it. Let me start off by saying that above and beyond all the issues of historiography, this is a marvelously well-written book. It is an exemplar of historical argument, not merely a collection of facts arranged in chronological order. It is an investigation, an inquest, into the events of 1911-1912, in which two parties attempted to reach the South Pole from opposite sides of Antarctica; one arrived first, and came back unscathed; and one arrived second, and then perished one and all in the cold and dark. Was this just fate, or was it the result of factors of organization and personality? In Huntford's vision, we are presented with two parallel novels, sort of like the panels of a diptych on either side of a medieval altar, one showing the blessed going to heaven, the other showing the damned going to perdition. The Amundsen party, blessed with a good, careful, insightful, and thoughtful leader, advances toward success. Meanwhile, the unfortunate Scott party advances toward its death - not "ill-fated", but "ill-led" - doomed by bad choices of equipment, methods, personnel, and timetable. The drama and horror of the deaths of the Scott party, as described here, has stayed with me for years. So have some of the lessons of the volume. It was Scott of whom the movies were made and the symphonies written, but it is really the Amundsens whose lessons we should learn, because it is better to succeed and live than to fail and perish in the blizzard with all your friends and followers. For years I would remember this book whenever issues of leadership and planning would come up in areas of my life far removed from polar exploration. Now I am very happy to actually own the book and to be able to re-read it and refer to it at my leisure. I enthusiastically recommend it.
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Summary: When does an expedition begin?
Review: It's well known by readers of books on exploration that Huntford draws a vivid contrast in this book between the successful Amundsen and the unsuccessful Scott in their race to be the first to set foot on the South Pole and return home to tell about it. In drawing this contrast, Huntford demonstrates that success on a mission of this kind of scope, going into an environment this hostile, starts well before the expedition itself. The habits of thinking, the sense of self, the way of making one's way in the world manifested by both Scott and Amundsen from early on in their lives is most skillfully portrayed by Huntford. A sense of fate drives this story. It's not a sense of forces working upon these two men from the outside that creates their fate. No, it's who they are from the inside: their fate is determined by their minds, their hearts, their souls. Scott's failure smacks of tragic inevitability. Amundsens' success seems a natural outgrowth of his curiosity, flexibility, and foresight. It's a sort of non-fiction allegory that implicitly argues that an expedition begins long before money is raised, ships secured, or a crew is assembled: it begins with the formation of one's character.
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Summary: Riveting
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.
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Summary: What really happened
Review: 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.
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