Arctic & Antartica History Books

ANTARCTICA: Firsthand Accounts of Exploration and Endurance
edited by Charles Neider. Condition: NEW 2000 Cooper Square Press Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: Antarctica is a fascinating collection of vivid accounts from the journals of fourteen explorers. Reviewer: "This is a fascinating compliation of true stories about some of the bravest people ever! Their stories of death, suffering and discovery in THE final frontier of our planet are absolutely riveting! If you "get" why they did it, you'll treasure this book. Even if you don't understand their reasons for having to explore Antarctica, you'll still be i for a great read and find a special respect for these true warriors." Accounts from: Captain Cook, George Forster, Belllinghausen, Weddell, Wilkes, James Ross, Amundsen, Robert Scott, Shackleton, Pointing, Cherry-rrard, Byrd, Siple, and Edmund Hillary. Great first-hand history! Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 5.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

ANTARCTICA: Journey to the South Pole
by Walter Dean Myers. B&W era photos and drawings illustrate. Condition: NEW 2004 Scholastic hardcover (pictorial boards - no DJ issued), first printing. Content: Science and geography play a big role in this exciting overview of the discovery and exploration of Antarctica, "the last unexplored landmass on Earth." What drives the narrative is the personal adventures of those who raced to reach the South Pole first, especially the fierce rivalry between Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (he got there first) and Britain's Robert Scott, whose entire party died. The writing is not always as strong as it was in Myers' Malcolm X (1993), but the book design is highly appealing, with archival photos and prints, and boxed insets with fascinating information about such topics as latitude and longitude, seals, scurvy, and magnetic and geographical poles. Although Myers doesn't include source notes, his extensive bibliography references personal accounts as well as the technology, and he has put together a useful fact summary and time line. Best of all are the quotes from primary documents that appear throughout the book; some are drawn from the journals of the explorers-- those who returned and those who didn't. Myers makes failure a part of heroism. Excellent homeschooling book. Grades 6 - 9. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 4.79 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

CROSSING ANTARTICA
by Will Steger and Jon Bowermaster. Color photo section. Condition: NEW 1992 Knopf hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first edition. Content: The story of the first transverse of Antarctica by dogsled and ski, a 4000-mile, seven-month (July 1989-March 1990) journey by an expedition of six men from six different countries, is told in expanded journal form by co-leader Steger. His team survived whiteouts, crevasses, 100F windchill, erratic supplies, a pregnant sled dog, a monotonous diet, a hostile National Science Foundation, frostbite and runny noses, and were rewarded by magnificent scenery and a sense of personal and scientific accomplishment. This above-average polar account keeps the reader moving along with the hardy six. Steger and Bowermaster also coauthored Saving the Earth Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 4.79 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

GHOSTS OF CAPE SABINE: The Harrowing True Story of the Greely Expediiton
by Leonard F. Guttridge. B&W era photos section. Polar map makes up the decorated end pages. Condition: NEW 2000 Putnams hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Light edge wear to top edge of DJ. Content: n May 1884, huddled in a tent on the northwest coast of Greenland, Private Roderick R. Schneider looked around at his companions and wrote in his journal: "It is horrible to see eighteen men dying by inches." One month later, Schneider was dead, a victim of starvation. Schneider was one of 24 men sent to establish a scientific base in Lady Franklin Bay in 1881. A combination of poor planning, bad weather, weak leadership, and a lack of support from the government that had sent them north caused all but six men to perish. Historian Leonard F. Guttridge tells the story of the ill-fated Greely expedition in Ghosts of Cape Sabine.The expedition got off to a rocky start, underprovisioned and manned with soldiers who had never been to the Arctic. Still, once established at Lady Franklin Bay, the team performed its scientific studies and even made a foray north, breaking the British record. Personality conflicts between Lieutenant Adolphus Greely and several of his men were intensified by the fact that the ships supposed to resupply and, after two years, relieve them, never came. Dangerously low on food and supplies, the party was forced to attempt to retreat on its own. After weeks of travel, much of it spent drifting on the ice pack in Kane Basin, the party arrived at Cape Sabine and made camp. As the weeks passed and the food ran out, the men subsisted on leather from their boots, miniscule shrimp, bits of moss scraped from the rocks, and--as the days grew longer and the party grew smaller--the bodies of their fallen comrades. "In the wan light of an unsetting sun during those early Arctic summer weeks, one or more of the desperate men at Cape Sabine had been up on the ridge of the dead, busy with scalpel or hunting knife." Guttridge utilized journals, reports, and personal correspondence to create an almost day-to-day account of the expedition, and he excels at bringing to life those desperate months waiting for rescue ships that came too late for most of the Greely expedition. Juicy details and a mastery of the subject make Ghosts of Cape Sabine read like a suspenseful novel. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 10.79 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

JOURNEY TO THE POLAR SEA
by Sir John Franklin. Condition: NEW 1998 Konemann Travel Classics small hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Content: Konemann presents a new edition of Franklin's classic first-person account of his tragic 1819-22 Arctic expedition. John Franklin's three-year sojourn in the wilderness succeeded in mapping part of the Arctic coast but ended in disaster. As supplies ran out, starvation and scurvy set in. More than half of the team members died as they huddled in winter quarters with lichens scraped off rocks, bones, scraps of hide, and their own boots as their only food. One voyager went insane and was executed on suspicion of murder and cannibalism. Sumptuously illustrated and poignantly written, this is a classic tale of exploration and high drama. Questions welcome [1 copy available]
$ 8.59 + $ 3.09 media shipping.

KABLOONA [Among the Inuit]
by Gontran de Poncins in collaboration with Lewis Galantiere. B&W photo section with author's drawings. Condition: UNREAD 1980 Time Life hardcover (maroon boards with gilt lettering - no DJ issued), no printing given. Content: Originally published in 1941, De Poncins relates his 15 months spent among the Inuit people of the Arctic. He is initially appalled at their uncivilized lifestyle but eventually morphs from a "Kabloona" (a white man) to an Eskimo. No other book about the Far North is written with so much sympathy, vividness and dramatic imagination. A good volume for public and academic sociology collections. [1 copy available]
$ 8.59 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

KARLUK: The Great Untold Story of Arctic Exploration
by William Laird McKinlay. B&W maps. Condition: UNREAD 2000 Weidenfeld hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), reissue. Content: This is a notable addition to the annals of Arctic exploration, a story of real heroism under appalling conditins, a noble epitaph for men who gave their lives to the quest for knowledge. Even if tht quest was ill-conceived, it does not diminish their courage, nor theier contribution to the story of mankind. [1 copy available]
$ 3.59 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

THE MYTHOLOGY OF NORTH AMERICA
by John Bierhorst. B&W photos, maps, and drawings illustrate. Condition: NEW updated 2001 Oxford University Press Tade Paperback, first printing. Perfect condition. Content: In this wide-ranging volume, John Bierhorst carefully delineates eleven mythological regions--from the Arctic to the Southwest and from California to the East Coast--presenting the gods, heroes, and primary myths of each area. First published in 1985, this indispensable guide has been updated to reflect the latest scholarship in Native studies. In a new Afterword, Bierhorst describes the recent impact of ancient myths in the arena of American Indian affairs and shows how Native Americans have successfully used mythology as oral evidence to reclaim land rights and to repatriate grave goods. Citing specific cases, he shows how new legislation and changing attitudes "have provided a basis for bringing myth to the negotiating table and into the courtroom." Detailed maps show tribal locations and the distribution of key stories. Indian artworks illustrate the texts and samples of differing narrative styles add enrichment, as some of the world's purest and most powerful myths are made more accessible--and more meaningful--than ever before. New Afterword by author. [2 copies available]
$ 9.75 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

NAUTILUS 90 NORTH
by Commander William R. Anderson, U.S.N. with Clay Blair, Jr. B&W photo section. Condition: Good condition only Signet paperback 1959 edition, 10th printing. Serious edgewear, hinge crease, spine crease, and interior pages are tanning but clean & tight. Content: The true story of the first voyage to the top of the world under the Arctic ice pak by the skipper of the submarine Nautilus. Exciting! [1 copy available]
$ 1.75 + $ 2.89 media shipping.

SOUTH: The Endurance Expedition
by Ernest Shackleton. 16 pages of original 1914 expedition photos by Frank Hurley. Maps. Condition: NEW 1999 Signet paperback edition, 4th printing. Tiny edgewear. Content: In 1914, as the shadow of war falls across Europe, a party led by veteran explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton sets out to become the first to rraverse the Antarctic continent. Optimism turned to horror as 28 men became marooned on a polar ice floe." Although there have been a number of new books and reprints recently focusing on the Endurance expedition, this is the one book everyone should read, Sir Ernest Shackleton's own story of the tragedy he turned into a triumph. Shackleton fully covers the expedition from its inception, through the loss of the Endurance, the stranding of the men on desolate Elephant Island, the majestic small-boat journey in search of rescue to South Georgia, the many attempts to evacuate the men from Elephant Island to the return home." [1 copy available]
$ 5.50 + $ 2.94 shipping.

SOUTH: A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage
by Ernest Shackleton. B&W maps and era photos throughout. Condition: NEW 2001 Carroll & Graf large Trade Paperback, 10th printing. Tiny edge wear plus a shelf-wear "wrinkle" to 7 pages fore edges (working on that). Content: Soon after the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole in 1911, his Anglo-Irish rival, Sir Ernest Shackleton, sought to top the feat by making his way from one end of Antarctica to the other on sledge. He set off with a crew of 28, including scientists and a movie cameraman, but the voyage turned disastrous when Shackleton's ship, the Endurance, became hopelessly stuck in pack ice, throwing the men (and the dogs brought to pull the sledges) into a desperate battle for survival. South is Shackleton's own account--one of the critical sources for Alfred Lansing's bestseller Endurance--of what it was like to be "helpless intruders in a strange world," a vivid narrative in which tales of Edwardian pluck are counterpointed with lyrical accounts of whales, penguins, and bizarre mirages. This story of a group of men who beat nearly impossible odds to escape death and make their way home is one of the all-time great survival stories. The 2002 TV movie Shackleton was, of course, based on this book, and was directed by Charles Sturridge and starred the fabulous Kenneth Branagh as Shackleton, John Grillo, Phoebe Nicholls, Eve Best, and a host of wonderful British actors. Excellent movie and true to the real story. [1 copy available]
$ 5.59 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

TO THE SHORES OF THE POLAR SEA: Three Years Exploring the Canadian Arctic, 1819 - 1822
by John Franklin. Condition: NEW 2004 Narrative Press Trade Paperback, no edition given. Tiny edgewear. Interior perfect. Content: Franklin was an officer in the Royal Navy (and later governor of Tasmania), but he was also one of the great polar explorers. This is the intimate narrative of his expedition in 1819. With only three companions, he explored the Canadian arctic from Hudson's Bay east to the Coppermine River and Bathurst Inlet. It was tough sledding: They were reduced to eating the leather parts of their clothes. Nevertheless, Franklin mapped 1,200 miles of coastline and logged 663 plants. Back in England he became a national hero. He died in 1845, while leading another expedition to the Arctic. Most interesting, at least to me, is the description of the Native Americans they encountered - with guns, tobacco, and porcupine quills - where did "isolated" tribes in the Arctic come up with these items? Read on! Questions welcome [1 copy available]
$ 4.79 + $ 3.09 shipping.

TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO: The World at the Time of Jesus
by Charles A. Frazee. B&W photos illustrate. Condition: NEW 2003 Eerdmans Publishing hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), second printing. Content: The shelves are filled with books describing the life of Jesus and his homeland, but rarely has Jesus life been placed within the larger context of world history. This book is an absorbing work that surveys for the first time the people who were alive and the historical events taking place around the world at the time of Jesus. Drawing on historical records and the work of archaeologists and anthropologists, Frazee explores the full sweep of human society contemporary with Jesus' own first-century Palestine. Each chapter looks at one of the worlds major regions from the Arctic, the Pacific Islands, and the Americas to Europe, Africa, and Asia and provides a short background of its history and its status at the time Jesus walked the earth. In providing a birds-eye view of the world at this pivotal point in history, Frazee gives readers a new perspective on the life of Jesus in the Holy Land, allowing them to compare and contrast it with life taking place elsewhere on the globe. Written with an inviting voice and enhanced with informative illustratations and maps, [1 copy available]
$ 8.69 + $ 3.39 media shipping.

THE VIKINGS AND AMERICA
by Erik Wahlgren. 103 illustrations. Condition: NEW 1987 Thames & Hudson Trade Paperback, no printing given. Content: Did Vinland, that mysterious "land of grapevines" that the Viking Leif Eriksson discovered and christened almost a thousand years ago, ever exist? Do the clues in the sagas of a North American location point to a specific place on a modern map? How much more of the New World may these pre-Columbian adventurers have explored? Drawing upon the clues found in ancient manuscripts and a deep knowledge of the historical and archaeological evidence, Wahlgren addresses these questions in a marvelously readable account. Excavations at L'Anse aux Meadows in northern Newfoundland show that the Vikings did indeed reach the North American continent around A.D.1000, presumably from their base in Southern Greenland. Other supposed Viking discoveries such as the Kensington Stone are dismissed as frauds, but legitimate finds from Arctic Canada to New England suggest Viking exploration far to the north and the south. Eventually, a worsening climate and attacks by native peoples ended the first European presence in the New World. [1 copy available]
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