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On December 14, 1911, the classical age of Polar exploration ended when Norway's Roald Amundsen conquered the South Pole. His competitor for the prize, Britain's Robert Scott, arrived one month later--but died on the return with four of his men only 11 miles from their next cache of supplies. But it was Scott, ironically, who became the legend, Britain's heroic failure, "a monument to sheer ambition and bull-headed persistence. His achievement was to perpetuate the romantic myth of the explorer as martyr, and... to glorify suffering and self- sacrifice as ends in themselves."
Last Place On Earth is a complex and fascinating account of the race for this last great terrestrial goal. It is also biographer Ronald Huntford's rather heavy-handed attempt to restore Amundsen to glory. Though this was the age of the amateur explorer, Amundsen was a professional: he left little to chance, apprenticed with Eskimos and obsessed over every detail. While Scott clung fast to the British rule of "No skis, no dogs", Amundsen understood that both were vital to survival and they clearly won him the Pole.
Amundsen in Huntford's view is the "last great Viking" and Scott his bungling opposite: "stupid... recklessly incompetent", and irresponsible in the extreme--failings that cost him and his teammates their lives. Yet for all of Scott's real or exaggerated faults, he understood far better than Amundsen the power of a well-crafted sentence. Scott's diaries were recovered and widely published, and if the world insisted on lionising Scott, it was partly because he told a better story. Huntford's bias aside, it's clear that both Scott and Amundsen were valiant and deeply flawed. "Scott... had set out to be an heroic example. Amundsen merely wanted to be first at the pole. Both had their prayers answered." --Svenja Soldovieri --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Review
In 600 wonderfully researched pages ... Huntford has at last written the 3-dimensional book this immense drama deserves (SPECTATOR )
Gripping ...enthralling ...Handles a great mass of material with exceptional intelligence and skill (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )
A brilliant achievement, as readable as an adventure story, as fact filled as an explorer's manual, as compelling as history always is when brought to life (TORONTO STAR 'One of the great debunking biographies’ )
NEW YORK TIMES (On December 14, 1911, the classical age of Polar exploration ended when Norway's Roald Amundsen conquered the South Pole. His competitor for the prize, Britain's Robert Scott, arrived one month later--but died on the return with four of his men only 11 mi )
Gripping ...enthralling ...Handles a great mass of material with exceptional intelligence and skill (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )
A brilliant achievement, as readable as an adventure story, as fact filled as an explorer's manual, as compelling as history always is when brought to life (TORONTO STAR 'One of the great debunking biographies’ )
NEW YORK TIMES (On December 14, 1911, the classical age of Polar exploration ended when Norway's Roald Amundsen conquered the South Pole. His competitor for the prize, Britain's Robert Scott, arrived one month later--but died on the return with four of his men only 11 mi )
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On the morning of November 1st, 1911, a little cavalcade left Cape Evans in the Antarctic, straggled over the sea ice and faded into the lonely wastes ahead. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
On the morning of November 1st, 1911, a little cavalcade left Cape Evans in the Antarctic, straggled over the sea ice and faded into the lonely wastes ahead. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Deeply flawed but very readable,
By Hoopdriver (Sussex) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Scott And Amundsen: The Last Place on Earth (Paperback)
It feels a bit odd to give a two-star review to a book that is in many respects well written and for the most part an enjoyable read. The trouble here is Huntford's obvious dislike for Scott which, as the pages go by seems to grow and expand to near hysterical proportions. Certainly Scott was a flawed character - aren't we all? - but he was also very much a product of his times, generally well regarded and respected by his men (Shackleton a notable exception) and deserves a better and more balanced biography (and biographer) than what is served up here.I have travelled to Antarctica many times myself, been to the South Pole and am deeply interested in the story and the continent itself. Huntford is clearly a very good writer - his biography of Shackleton (written some years after this book, when he had matured more as a writer and person) is wonderful. This one too is entertaining, until his personal biases and antipathy to Scott become too annoying. It is one thing to write an iconoclastic biography, fair enough, but honestly this descends almost to parody, and by the end his non-stop harping about Scott's every single action or thought ultimately leads you to question and begin to doubt much of what was probably some pretty good research. He needed a strong editor who knew something about the topic, to rein him in. An excellent and thoughtful counterpoint to this harangue is Susan Solomon's book The Coldest March. Written by a scientist with much experience in Antarctica and the South Pole (places Huntford had never been when he wrote this book) and backed by decades of hard climate data she reveals that Scott was not quite the nincompoop Huntford would have us believe, and that his (and his men's) Byronic death was due at least as much to an unusually severe conditions as his arch-Victorian hubris. An entertaining read, but there are better around.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
One tarnished hero, and one forgotten!,
By Jon Shipton "Jon" (United kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Scott And Amundsen: The Last Place on Earth (Paperback)
Huntford obviously set off with the best intentions, of restoring Amundsen as the heroic conquerer of The South Pole!But he is so influenced by his own past, and lack of any real credentials, that he very quickly descends into bashing the British Empire at any given opportunity. Scott became the main focus of this hatred. Huntford Born in Capetown 1927, came to London after WWII to study physics at Imperial College. Two years later he was kicked out, and quickly became a drifter. He was heavily influenced by a Danish political activist, who 'ordered' him to read 'Ibsen' in the original Scandanavian text! So he learns the language and finds an affinity with anyone who agrees with him. Eventually settling in Norway. The more he became obsessed with anything Scandanavian, the more he turned against anything British. The closest Huntford got to any pole, was sleeping out in Norwegian forests; Which he says "gave him an insight into the minds of Norwegian explorers"...He was also winter-sports correspondant for the Observer newspaper. Hardly the makings of an expert in Polar exploration! Nor does it give him the insight, to see past his own failings. Nor does it give him the right to place himself on a pedastal as the 'righter of wrongs' in everything Norwegian! Scott had led a previous expedition, 'Discovery' in 1904. He knew EXACTLY what to expect. So to call him "Incompetent" or "A bad planner" or "Foolish", is plain stupidity. Though this never stops Huntford! Scott meticulously planned an 1800 mile trip! Using techniques, clothing and methods used on his previous expedition, AND used by Ernest Shackleton. (Huntford has NO PROBLEM with Shackleton using these EXACT METHODS!!!). Which meant depoting food and supplies with a margin for error built in at every step (Again, methods used by Shackleton, and applauded by Huntford)... What new research has shown, is 'unusually' bad weather and record low temperatures for 1912. Which WAS a major factor in Scott's failure. The new data about the weather in 1912, was not known in 1979, when Huntford first published his work. The fact that Scott was a month behind Amundsen, so a month closer to Antarctic winter, WAS known! This last fact only exacerbates the vitriol poured on Scott by Huntford.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A gripping, but astonishingly one-sided account,
By Jimmy C "Jimmy C" (Fulham) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Scott And Amundsen: The Last Place on Earth (Paperback)
The other reviews some this book up well. When I bought it, I was well aware that it would be an anti-Scott account of his life. I was taken aback by how one-sided and vitriolic it was. Barely a paragraph goes past without Huntford giving Scott a kicking in some way, construing the tiniest detail to be another example of a character-failing on the part of Scott. It can get a little tiring after a while. What's more, I feel sometimes Huntford fails to give enough evidence at times - talking about Scott being passed over for promotion when all of his colleagues were progressing - but he failed to give examples and names of these colleagues.All of that said, I couldn't put it down. The 'attitude' of the author is rather amusing, since it's written which such spite that one can only assume that Scott's family in some way cheated Huntford out of an inheritance or systematically bullied an ancestor in some way. It's like watching one half of a blazing row. The other thing to point out is that other biographies - and hagiographies - are available. If this were the only book on Scott, it would be a tragedy, but it isn't. In the canon of work on the man, it's useful to have someone build a strong case against. I plan to read another biography of Scott for balance, but I'm glad Huntford went out of his way to compile this vicious account.
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