The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition

The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
by Caroline Alexander

The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
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Book Summary Information

Author: Caroline Alexander
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1998-11-03
ISBN: 0375404031
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Knopf
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Book Reviews of The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition

Book Review: Remarkable Voyage Told in Text and Photos
Summary: 5 Stars

Explorer Ernest Shackleton didn't know when he named his boat "The Endurance" that he would be foreshadowing a survival experience for the ages. The story of his nearly two years of survival in the Antarctic and southern polar areas is one of endurance and fortitude in the face of unimaginable physical hardships.

The text and the photos evoke the many emotions and thoughts that must have occurred to Shackleton and his men: loneliness, fear, raw beauty, untamed nature, comradeship, dirt, exhaustion, hopeless, and triumph. This book, more than any other I can think of, makes the case for having photos accompany non-fiction works whenever possible. The photos are stunning, especially when it's considered that they were done with glass-plate technology that had to survive the incredible journey to safety of Shackleton and his men.

A recap of the tale. Unlike some polar explorers, Shackleton was well-prepared when he went on his fateful journey in 1914. He'd held the record at one time for the overland voyage closest to the South Pole -- and almost perished on the journey -- and so he knew what to do and not to do to overcome the harsh conditions. So when he set out to make the first crossing of the Antarctic ice cap, he was ready for spending a long time on the unforgiving ice. However, due to bad luck of setting sail (yes, sail) in a wood boat during a year when the winter storms came early, he was trapped on the ice with 22 men and their dog teams.

After they wintered on the ice, living in the boat for a while and then on tents when the boat sank, Shackleton and his men truly began to suffer as they tried to find a way home. First, they tried to walk. But the terrain was so rough and they had to carry so much stuff for the long walk that they were averaging 1.5 miles per day. Then they sat on ice floes, waiting for the water to clear so that they could sail their lifeboats through treacherous waters without being crushed. And then in three boats of less than 30 feet length, they sailed several hundred miles through gales and storms over six days, only to land on one of the most isolated, desolate spots of rock in the world. From there, Shackleton set sail again in a single boat with a crew of five, and they went more than 800 miles to a speck of an island, where there was a whaling station. Of course, he landed on the opposite end of the island and had to walk over ice-covered mountains thousands of feet high in order to reach the station and ultimate rescue.

It's simply impossible to imagine living in a tent on an ice floe, with 80-mph gales blowing for days, and eating penguin or seal stakes every day for months on end. It's impossible to imagine not having a hot bath for more than two years, or enduring a ride in a waterlogged boat for in icy waters for six days, especially after already having been worn down by more than year of living in sub-human conditions. But Shackleton and the other men did it -- apparently with mostly good cheer and optimism.







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Summary of The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition

In August 1914, days before the outbreak of the First World War, the renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven set sail for the South Atlantic in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize in the history of exploration: the first crossing on foot of the Antarctic continent. Weaving a treacherous path through the freezing Weddell Sea, they had come within eighty-five miles of their destination when their ship, Endurance, was trapped fast in the ice pack. Soon the ship was crushed like matchwood, leaving the crew stranded on the floes. Their ordeal would last for twenty months, and they would make two near-fatal attempts to escape by open boat before their final rescue.

Drawing upon previously unavailable sources, Caroline Alexander gives us a riveting account of Shackleton's expedition--one of history's greatest epics of survival. And she presents the astonishing work of Frank Hurley, the Australian photographer whose visual record of the adventure has never before been published comprehensively. Together, text and image re-create the terrible beauty of Antarctica, the awful destruction of the ship, and the crew's heroic daily struggle to stay alive, a miracle achieved largely through Shackleton's inspiring leadership.

The survival of Hurley's remarkable images is scarcely less miraculous: The original glass plate negatives, from which most of the book's illustrations are superbly reproduced, were stored in hermetically sealed cannisters that survived months on the ice floes, a week in an open boat on the polar seas, and several more months buried in the snows of a rocky outcrop called Elephant Island. Finally Hurley was forced to abandon his professional equipment; he captured some of the most unforgettable images of the struggle with a pocket camera and three rolls of Kodak film.

Published in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History's landmark exhibition on Shackleton's journey, The Endurance thrillingly recounts one of the last great adventures in the Heroic Age of exploration--perhaps the greatest of them all.
Melding superb research and the extraordinary expedition photography of Frank Hurley, The Endurance by Caroline Alexander is a stunning work of history, adventure, and art which chronicles "one of the greatest epics of survival in the annals of exploration." Setting sail as World War I broke out in Europe, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, led by renowned polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, hoped to become the first to cross the Antarctic continent. But their ship, Endurance, was trapped in the drifting pack ice, eventually to splinter, leaving the expedition stranded on floes--a situation that seemed "not merely desperate but impossible."

Most skillfully Alexander constructs the expedition's character through its personalities--the cast of veteran explorers, scientists, and crew--with aid from many previously unavailable journals and documents. We learn, for instance, that carpenter and shipwright Henry McNish, or "Chippy," was "neither sweet-tempered nor tolerant," and that Mrs. Chippy, his cat, was "full of character." Such firsthand descriptions, paired with 170 of Frank Hurley's intimate photographs, which are comprehensively assembled here for the first time, penetrate the hulls of the Endurance and these tough men. The account successfully reveals the seldom-seen domestic world of expedition life--the singsongs, feasts, lectures, camaraderie--so that when the hardships set in, we know these people beyond the stereotypical guise of mere explorers and long for their safety.

Alexander reveals Shackleton as an inspiring optimist, "a leader who put his men first." Throughout the grueling ordeal, Shackleton and his men show what endurance and greatness are all about. The Endurance is a most intimate portrait of an expedition and of survival. Readers will possess a newfound respect for these daring souls, know better their unthinkable toil and half-forgotten realm of glory. --Byron Ricks

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