This text provides an insight into the early history of the Polar regions, and tells the stories of Man's first exploration of the Arctic and Antarctic, and subsequent expeditions. The history of individual Polar expeditions has been told many times, but usually only as personal accounts of individual adventures. This misses the overall context of polar exploration - why the British depended on ponies, or plant-eating animals (on the only continent where plants don't grow), why Franklin's men perished when the local Eskimos were eking out an existence around them (and reporting Franklin's demise), and why the Scandinavians were always better than anybody else.The first map of Antarctica was produced in 1556 - the Vikings visited the Arctic 1,000 years before. In 2001, the US Base at the South Pole is manned 365 days a year. The book tells the whole story of how the two last wildernesses, at either end of the world, were discovered, conquered and tamed.
- ISBN10 000711124X
- ISBN13 9780007111244
- Publish Date 7 May 2002
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 4 October 2004
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
- Imprint Collins
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 224
- Language English
- URL http://harpercollins.co.uk