Review by Choice Review
In his latest work, Berton has used source materials in scores of depositories, the accounts of explorers themselves, as well as a judicious selection of the secondary literature dealing with the search for the Northwest Passage and the quest for the North Pole. His lively narrative critically treats the efforts of polar explorers in the 19th century, from John Ross and William Edward Parry to Roald Amundsen. Berton finishes his grand story with the conflicting claims of Robert Edwin Peary and Frederick Cook to have reached the North Pole, and shows that neither achieved that goal. Berton examines the actors in this drama, and skillfully sketches their strengths and weaknesses, their human flaws and ambitions. He also writes about the Eskimos, so often neglected by other authors, without whom the story would be incomplete. In The Polar Voyagers (1976) and its companion work, The North Pole or Bust (1977), Frank Rasky also provided a description of the Eskimos, followed by biographical sketches of the major polar explorers from the Vikings of the 8th century to Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Jeannette Mirsky's classic To the Arctic gives an overview of polar exploration from earliest times to the 1930s (first published in 1934, repeatedly republished), and Lawrence P. Kirwan's The White Road (London, 1959) offers a brief summary of 19th-century efforts. Berton's work, however, is by far the most lively and comprehensive history of 19th-century polar exploration. One minor point: footnotes would have helped those interested in locating the materials cited in the text. Community college, undergraduate, and general readers. -C. M. Naske, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Berton scrutinizes the Golden Age of Arctic exploration, from an 1818 encounter between Eskimos and Englishmen (Sir John Ross and William Parry as they sought the Northwest Passage) to the scandal-ridden competition for the North Pole between American explorers Frederick Cook and Robert Peary. By making an effort to reflect the characters of these driven explorers, Berton lends insight into the way challenges were met, successfully and not. He also emphasizes the role that irony played in the exploration of the Arctic. For example, it was John Franklin's disappearance (not his travels) that charted so much Arctic territory, primarily from the misdirection of the numerous expeditions launched to rescue him. Similarly, after Berton replays the grueling journeys of Cook and Peary and the aftermath of the scandal, he points out that their most critical, original achievements remain unheeded. An engrossing adventure story filled with delightful historical insights. Bibliography; to be indexed. DPD.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This spirited history probes the 15-year search for Sir John Franklin's lost expedition in the mid-19th century and the Frederick Cook-Robert Peary controversy. ``Readers who think the ultimate adventure took place at the South Pole should rediscover the Arctic explorations,'' said PW. Illustrated. Author tour. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
This magnificent history is the first comprehensive account of Arctic conquest from the earliest British expeditions to Robert Peary's disputed achievement of 90 degrees north latitude. Berton (Starting Out, The Invasion of Canada, etc.) spins one extraordinary tale after another, concentrating on the bizarre personalities of the great Arctic explorers as well as on their stunning exploits. He begins with a scene of mind-boggling surrealism: two British sailors in cocked hats and tailcoats confronting a group of fur-clad Eskimos on the Greenland coast, the first encounter between these two alien cultures. The Englishmen were William Parry, first white man to winter in the Arctic, and John Ross, plagued by a terrible ego and by accusations of cowardice and plagiarism. Their amazing adventures serve as prelude to the story of Sir John Franklin, a dour, courageous man whose expedition disappeared in 1845. The subsequent hunt for Franklin became the prod to all further polar expeditions. When Eskimos finally revealed the truth--that Franklin and his men had perished in a tragedy involving starvation, even cannibalism--Charles Dickens huffily damned the Eskimos as ""treacherous and cruel."" Berton tells these stories with tremendous flare, and shows rare sense among Polar writers by describing in detail the women left behind by these driven men. He then dives into late-19th-century exploits and, in a smashing finale, delivers a harsh, meticulous look at Cook and Peary--painting the former as a jolly con-man, the later as a ruthless paranoid, concluding that both were frauds who faked their achievement of the Pole. An absolutely thrilling history of one of the most peculiar quests in human record, for a Passage that ""has no commercial value and an almost unidentified pinpoint on the top of the world that has very little scientific significance."" This should be the definitive study of Arctic exploration for years to come. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
