About this book
'This is a very well balanced and meticulously researched book. It shows beyond doubt how false and shallow have been the many malicious and blinkered books and lms in their bland condemnation of Captain Scott as a bumbler and inept leader. Quite the opposite was actually true, and The Coldest March goes a long way to putting polar history right and thereby to killing off the vicious myth about one of Britain's great explorers.'—Sir Ranulph Fiennes
'Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale.'—Robert Falcon Scott, written after travelling for weeks in daily temperatures below -35 F.
The Coldest March tells the tragic story of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his British team who in November 1911 began a trek across the snows of Antarctica, striving to be the first to reach the South Pole. After marching and skiing more than nine hundred miles, the men reached the Pole in January 1912, only to suffer the terrible realisation that a group of five Norwegians had been there about a month earlier. Scott and his four companions died on the return journey. Whether they were courageous heroes or tragic incompetents has been debated ever since.
Susan Solomon brings a scientific perspective to her understanding of the men of the expedition, their agonising struggle, and the reasons for their deaths. Drawing on extensive meteorological data and on her personal knowledge of the Antarctic, she depicts in detail the sights, sounds, legends and ferocious weather of that singular place.
She reaches the startling conclusion that the polar party was struck down by exceptionally frigid weather—a rare misfortune that confounded the men's meticulous predictions of what to expect.
This poignant and beautifully written book restores Scott and his men to the place of honour they deserve.
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Table of contents
- The Coldest March
- CONTENTS
- MAPS
- FIGURES
- PREFACE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- PROLOGUE The Hut at the Bottom of the World
- ONE Into the Pack
- TWO Of Dogs and Men
- THREE The Return
- FOUR The Safety of Supplies
- FIVE The Start of a “Coreless” Winter
- SIX For the Love of Science
- SEVEN In the Footsteps of Shackleton
- EIGHT Beyond the H of Hell
- NINE This Awful Place
- TEN Sunset on the Barrier
- ELEVEN The Anguish of Helplessness
- TWELVE In Search of Explanations
- THIRTEEN A Chillingly Unusual Month
- FOURTEEN The Winds of Chance and Choice
- EPILOGUE The Worst Weather in the World
- APPENDIX 1 The Men of the Mission
- APPENDIX 2 A Timeline of Interconnected Lives
- NOTES
- GLOSSARY
- SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
- INDEX