Veteran explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton’s excruciating and inspiring expedition to Antarctica aboard the Endurance has long captured the public imagination. South is his own first-hand account of this epic adventure. As war clouds darkened over Europe in 1914, a party led by Shackleton set out to make the first crossing of the entire Antarctic continent via the Pole. But their initial optimism was short-lived... more...

Antarctica, the last place on Earth, is not famous for its cuisine. Yet it is famous for stories of heroic expeditions in which hunger was the one spice everyone carried. At the dawn of Antarctic cuisine, cooks improvised under inconceivable hardships, castaways ate seal blubber and penguin breasts while fantasizing about illustrious feasts, and men seeking the South Pole stretched their rations to the breaking point. Today, Antarctica's kitchens... more...

"For the first time in recent years, we have a synthesis of the latest thinking and discoveries by a younger scholar with an authoritative grasp of the subject. This book is an important contribution to the general literature of human prehistory, unique for its comprehensive coverage of the circumpolar regions."—Brian Fagan, author of The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization "A uniquely authoritative, highly readable, and... more...

In the winter of 1913, high in the Canadian Arctic, two Catholic priests set out on a dangerous mission to reach a group of Eskimos and convert them. Upon reaching their destination, the priests were murdered. Over the next three years, one of the Arctic’s most tragic stories became one of North America’s strangest and most memorable police investigations and trials. A near-perfect parable of late colonialism, as well as a rich exploration of the... more...

Presenting a range of evidence for these diverse styles, from Roman art to early medieval bracteate amulets, and from classical texts to Beowulf, the Edda and Icelandic sagas, Professor Speidel here details seventeen different Germanic warriors styles, including berserks, wolf-warriors, club-wielders, long-hairs, ghost warriors and horse-stabbers, and how they indicate an unbroken continuity of customs, beliefs and battle-field tactics.... more...

“This book is as autobiographical as it is biographical . . . a book that juxtaposes two adventurers, one with her own challenges still unfolding and the other with his position fixed in history . . . a book worthy of the centenary celebration of Amundsen’s trek to the South Pole.”—San Francisco Chronicle Today the North and South Poles are home to research stations and film crews, but just a century ago they were forbidding... more...

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Now in paperback, the gripping and inspiring tale of a woman's survival alone in the Arctic. In 1921, four men and one woman ventured deep into the Arctic. Two years later, only one returned. When 23-year-old Inuit Ada Blackjack signed on as a seamstress for a top-secret Arctic expedition, her goal was simple: earn money and find a husband. But her terrifying experiences -- both in the wild and back in civilization -- comprise one of the... more...

Set in Cold-War-era 1988, Big Miracle is the real story behind the remarkable, bizarre and often times uproarious event that mesmerized the world for weeks. On October 7, an Inuit hunter found three California Gray Whales imprisoned in the Arctic ice. In the past, as was nature's way, trapped whales always died. Not this time. Rose compellingly describes how oil company executives, Greenpeace activists, Eskimos,... more...

Sea ice and the midnight sun, flaming aurora and endless winter night--the arctic of traveler's tales and romantic novels is the unattainable dream of a vast and desolate world--the last imaginary place on Earth. Now, in this fascinating volume, renowned archeologist Robert McGhee lifts the veil to reveal the true Arctic. Combining anthropology, history, and personal memoir, this book dispels romanticized notions of the Arctic as a world apart, exotic... more...