Labored and long but of interest to would-be Arctic explorers and armchair adventurers.
A chronicle of a doomed Italian expedition to the Arctic in 1928.
Umberto Nobile was an undeniable genius: a brilliant engineer and fearless traveler who had no problem getting into shouting matches with Mussolini or fierce rivalries with Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. As Piesing observes, Amundsen and a host of other travelers had been swarming all over the Arctic in a kind of colonial land rush, hoping to claim Svalbard and other boreal lands for their respective nations. Though he was wary and querulous, Amundsen enlisted Nobile to join an expedition that the Italian piloted aboard one of the “jumbo-jet-sized airships” that he had designed and built. Their relationship was fraught, but when Nobile crashed on a second expedition to the Arctic, Amundsen rushed to join the rescue effort. For various reasons, so did everyone else. “The Swedes, Danes, and Finns began to organize missions,” writes Piesing. “The Americans, Germans, French, and Russians all wanted to help, if in a somewhat independent manner that made coordination difficult.” The tale involves rivalry, treachery, a little vainglorious incompetence here and there, bruised feelings, plenty of missing persons, some acts of true heroism, and perhaps even the “custom of the sea”—i.e., cannibalism. Granted that there are many moving parts to the story, Piesing stretches out each episode to nearly the breaking point, with plenty of portentous utterances: “Some things aren’t forgotten even in death”; “Amundsen wasn’t stupid. He could smell a rat.” Still, the author has visited the places about which he writes, and his sketches of remote locales make for interesting reading. He also offers useful insights on the strange blend of competition and cooperation that characterized Arctic exploration, and he closes on a thoughtful note: “The story isn’t finished. The Arctic ice holds many secrets. Global warming may soon reveal the last resting place of Amundsen…and of the Italia and the six men.”
Labored and long but of interest to would-be Arctic explorers and armchair adventurers.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-285152-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Custom House/Morrow
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.
A harrowing expedition to Antarctica, recounted by Departures senior features editor Sancton, who has reported from every continent on the planet.
On Aug. 16, 1897, the steam whaler Belgica set off from Belgium with young Adrien de Gerlache as commandant. Thus begins Sancton’s riveting history of exploration, ingenuity, and survival. The commandant’s inexperienced, often unruly crew, half non-Belgian, included scientists, a rookie engineer, and first mate Roald Amundsen, who would later become a celebrated polar explorer. After loading a half ton of explosive tonite, the ship set sail with 23 crew members and two cats. In Rio de Janeiro, they were joined by Dr. Frederick Cook, a young, shameless huckster who had accompanied Robert Peary as a surgeon and ethnologist on an expedition to northern Greenland. In Punta Arenas, four seamen were removed for insubordination, and rats snuck onboard. In Tierra del Fuego, the ship ran aground for a while. Sancton evokes a calm anxiety as he chronicles the ship’s journey south. On Jan. 19, 1898, near the South Shetland Islands, the crew spotted the first icebergs. Rough waves swept someone overboard. Days later, they saw Antarctica in the distance. Glory was “finally within reach.” The author describes the discovery and naming of new lands and the work of the scientists gathering specimens. The ship continued through a perilous, ice-littered sea, as the commandant was anxious to reach a record-setting latitude. On March 6, the Belgica became icebound. The crew did everything they could to prepare for a dark, below-freezing winter, but they were wracked with despair, suffering headaches, insomnia, dizziness, and later, madness—all vividly capture by Sancton. The sun returned on July 22, and by March 1899, they were able to escape the ice. With a cast of intriguing characters and drama galore, this history reads like fiction and will thrill fans of Endurance and In the Kingdom of Ice.
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984824-33-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
A valuable contribution to our understanding of one of history’s most vital figures.
An epistolary memoir of Nelson Mandela’s prison years.
From August 1962 to February 1990, Mandela (1918-2013) was imprisoned by the apartheid state of South Africa. During his more than 27 years in prison, the bulk of which he served on the notorious Robben Island prison off the shores of Cape Town, he wrote thousands of letters to family and friends, lawyers and fellow African National Congress members, prison officials, and members of the government. Heavily censored for both content and length, letters from Robben Island and South Africa’s other political prisons did not always reach their intended targets; when they did, the censorship could make them virtually unintelligible. To assemble this vitally important collection, Venter (A Free Mind: Ahmed Kathrada's Notebook from Robben Island, 2006, etc.), a longtime Johannesburg-based editor and journalist, pored through these letters in various public and private archives across South Africa and beyond as well as Mandela’s own notebooks, in which he transcribed versions of these letters. The result is a necessary, intimate portrait of the great leader. The man who emerges is warm and intelligent and a savvy, persuasive, and strategic thinker. During his life, Mandela was a loving husband and father, a devotee of the ANC’s struggle, and capable of interacting with prominent statesmen and the ANC’s rank and file. He was not above flattery or hard-nosed steeliness toward his captors as suited his needs, and he was always yearning for freedom, not only—or even primarily—for himself, but rather for his people, a goal that is the constant theme of this collection and was the consuming vision of his entire time as a prisoner. Venter adds tremendous value with his annotations and introductions to the work as a whole and to the book’s various sections.
A valuable contribution to our understanding of one of history’s most vital figures.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63149-117-7
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
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