| View Larger Image | South Pole, The | Hardcoverby Roald Amundsen (Author)
| List Price: | $28.99 | | Price: | $23.19 | | You Save: | $5.80 (20%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Hardcover | | Publisher: | IndyPublish | | Page Count: | 460 Pages | | Publication Date: | November 27, 2002 | | Sales Rank: | 963,894rd |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
"Amundsen was the supreme exponent of Polar technique. He towered above his rivals; he brought an intellectual approach to exploration and stood, as he still stands, the antipole to the heroic delusion.. . . The journey to the South Pole remains his masterpiece, the culmination of the classical age of Polar exploration and, perhaps, the greatest snow journey ever made." -Roland Huntford, The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen's Race to the South Pole. "Roald Amundsen planted the Norwegian flag on the South Pole on December 14, 1911: a full month before Robert Falcon Scott arrived on the same spot. Amundsen's 'The South Pole' is less well-known than his rival's, in part because he is less of a literary stylist, but also, perhaps, because he survived the journey. His book is a riveting first-hand account of a truly professional expedition; Amundsen's heroism is understated, but it is heroism nonetheless." -The Times of London, 23 June 2001 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 spring of 1911 two separate expeditions left their respective camps in Antarctica in a desperate bid to achieve the glory of being first to reach the South Pole: a British party, led by Captain R. F. Scott, and a Norwegian one under Captain Roald Amundsen. The South Pole-Amundsen's first-hand account of the expedition-is a fascinating and highly readable history of the tenacity and perseverance of the age. "The last of the Vikings," Roald Engebreth Gravning Amundsen was a powerfully built man of over six feet in height, born into a family of merchant sea captains in 1872. In 1903 he navigated the Northwest Passage in a 70-foot fishing boat. Soon afterwards he learned that Ernest Shackleton was setting out on an attempt to reach the South Pole. Shackleton abandoned his quest a mere 97 miles short of the Pole, but Amundsen began preparing his own expedition. Although this was the age of the amateur explorer, Amundsen was a professional: he left little to chance, apprenticed with Inuits, and obsessed over every detail. On October 18, 1911 Amundsen's party set out from the Bay of Whales, on Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf, for their final drive toward the pole. His British counterpart, Robert Falcon Scott, dependent on Siberian ponies rather than on dogs, began his trip three weeks later. While Scott clung fast to the British rule of "No skis, no dogs," Amundsen understood that both were vital to survival. Aided by exceptionally cooperative weather conditions, Amundsen's men passed the point where Shackleton was forced to turn back on December 7, and at approximately 3pm on December 14, 1911, Roald Amundsen raised the flag of Norway at the South Pole, one month before Scott's party would arrive. A polar masterpiece of history and adventure, The South Pole is the stunning first-hand account of one of the greatest success stories in the annals of exploration. Most skillfully Amundsen constructs the expedition's character through its personalities-the cast of veteran explorers, scientists, and crew-providing insight not only into Amundsen's philosophy of exploration, but into the classical age of polar explorers. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 6 reviews)
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MasterPiece. by Gustavo B. Horbach (Porto Alegre, BRAZIL)  5 Stars
June 07, 2007
Wonderful. Strong. Beautiful. It is a great book. You end up thinking that the five hundred pages are not enought. Amundsen is the project management himself. It is a pleasure to read such an adventure in a such complete edition, with all maps, photos, cientific info, etc. Highly recommended.
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Disappointed with the Indy Publishing edition. by weebil (Indiana)  3 Stars
January 15, 2007
Don't waste your money on the Indy Publishing edition of this book. No pictures, no maps, no dust jacket. It is no fun to read a full paragraph description by the author of an incident that was recorded with a photograph that is not in the book. A better investment would be the paper back edition.
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Amundsen was funny! by Travis Emmitt 5 Stars
February 22, 2006
This book was a lot of fun, in a geeky documentary sort of way.
Amundsen had a dry sense of humor, kind of like Tolkien. You know, polite and proper but every once in a while you can picture an arched eyebrow. Like Gandalf cracking a subtle joke. If you are not paying attention, you will miss it... but if you *are* paying attention, it'll make you chuckle.
I laughed out loud several times when reading this book, which is something I never did when reading other Antarctica books.
So if you are worried about this book being "dry" and "boring", well, did you like Lord of the Rings? If so, Amundsen's writing might "click" with you too.
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The Norwegian Method by D. S. Thurlow (Alaska)  4 Stars
February 11, 2006
Roald Amundsen's "The South Pole" is a detailed, even exhaustive account of his successful 1910-1912 expedition to the South Pole. Amundsen's expedition was the first to reach the South Pole, after failures by other expeditions.
Amundsen was relentlessly methodical and practical in planning and executing the expedition. He identified a practical method of travel for the long haul to the South Pole from the Antarctic coast: dog sleds and skiis. He and his crew experimented and tested all their equipment and supplies in the Antarctic while patiently waiting for the right weather to travel. In striking contrast to his British competitor, Robert Falcon Scott, Amundsen correctly estimated the amount of food that would be consumed by physically active men operating for weeks in sub-zero temperatures. Amundsen's preparation is so complete that the actual expedition sometimes has all the drama of a weekend fishing trip. Amundsen was apparently a modest man, and it falls to Roland Huntford in an introduction to draw the obvious comparison with the catastrophic failure of the Scott expedition.
Amundsen's account provides all the detail necessary for anyone who might wish to duplicate his feat. Unfortunately, his writing style is very dry and even dedicated students of polar exploration may find finishing this book a long haul.
This book is highly recommended to students of the history of polar travel.
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Preparedness Leads To Success by Randy Smith (Pineville, La United States) 5 Stars
May 27, 2003
In the Foreword, Roland Huntford describes Amundsen's narrative as "all that Scott's is not". How right he is! This a very large book, but nonetheless an easy read. Amundsen relates a fascinating tale of fortune, misfortune, hardship, and ultimately - success. The narrative is detailed, but not overly so. In many places, a dose of humor is weaved in. Complete with numerous photos, maps, and scientific data, this book should be considered one of the great narratives of exploration. The great moral lesson of this tale is that preparedness ultimately leads to success. Is it any wonder that Roald Amundsen and his comrades won the race to the South Pole?
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SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| The Last Place on Earth (Modern Library Exploration)
by Roland Huntford (Author), Paul Theroux (Introduction)
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...
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| Journals: Scott's Last Expedition (Oxford World's Classics)
by Robert Falcon Scott (Author), Max Jones (Editor)
In January 1912, Britain's Captain Robert F. Scott reached the South Pole, only to find he had been beaten by Roald Amundsen's Norwegian expedition. Scott and his companions faced an 850-mile march to safety. All perished on the return. A few months later, a search party found Scott's body and the journals that told his tragic story.
Scott's own account was published to extraordinary acclaim in 1913. This new edition draws on ninety years of reflection on the Antarctic disaster to...
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| Mawson's Will: The Greatest Polar Survival Story Ever Written
by Lennard Bickel (Author), Sir Edmund Hillary (Foreword)
Australian Sir Douglas Mawson chose not to go with Robert Scott to the South Pole in 1911, but instead set out on a less prestigious expedition to chart Antarctica's coastline. Mawson was not inexperienced - in 1908 he had led an important expedition to the South Magnetic Pole - but nothing could have prepared him for what happened on this trek. Mawson's task was to chart 1,500 miles of coastline and claim it for the British crown. Setting out in a party of three, he faced mountains,...
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| Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen: Ambition and Tragedy in the Antarctic
by David Thomson (Author)
Between the middle of January and the end of March 1912 five men died in the attempt to return from the South Pole to their base on the edge of Antarctica. Their leader, the last to die and the man whose diary described their agonies was Robert Falcon Scott. The expedition had been beaten to the Pole by a band of racing Norwegians, led by Roald Amundsen. The bodies of the last three to die were found seven months later and, ever since, Scott’s men have been British heroes. It is that legend,...
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| Farthest North (Modern Library Exploration)
by Fridjtof Nansen (Author), Roland Huntford (Introduction)
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: surprising when we remember the sums of money that have been lavished on the equipment of some of these expeditions. The fact is, they have generally been in such a hurry to set out that there has been no time to COLIN ARCHER devote to a more careful equipment. In many cases, indeed, preparations were not...
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