3 reviews
Sales Rank: 30003

Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416

Dewey Decimal Number: 919.8904
ASIN: B000FC1BRO

Publication Date: March 25, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Similar Items:

•	The Complete User's Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle (Join 40,000 Kindle owners who've downloaded this guide, or get the paperback as a gift or research aid for prospective buyers!)
•	The South Pole

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Exemplary British expedition leader Sir Ernest Shackleton's (1874-1922) compelling account of his 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition consisting of two ships, the HMS Endurance and the HMS Aurora. The goal of the expedition (which it failed to achieve, but not for want of perseverance) was to cross the Antarctic by dogsled, exploring unknown territory and making scientific observations along the way. The plan called for the Endurance, with Shackleton aboard, to establish a base on the shore of the Weddell Sea, while the Aurora did the same at the Ross Sea on the opposite side of the continent. From the Weddell Sea base a six-man Transcontinental party led by Shackleton would set out for the Ross Sea base by dog sled. However, after arriving in Weddell Sea, the Endurance became trapped in ice floes and was eventually crushed, leaving the twenty-eight members of party to make their way 300 miles across the ice and establish a camp on Elephant Island. From there, Shackleton and five of his men courageously set out by small boat on a sixteen-day journey to Stromness Whaling Station on South Georgia Island to find help, enduring numbing cold, extreme thirst, two fierce gales, and a rogue wave of which he later wrote, ". . . I realized that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but [its] white crest . . . During twenty-six years' experience of the ocean in all its moods I had not encountered [one] so gigantic." On finally reaching Stromness, Shackleton immediately set about returning to Elephant Island to rescue the men he had left there. After several unsuccessful attempts, he finally reached them just as their supplies were running out. Returning to New Zealand, he then sailed to the Ross Sea base to retrieve the expedition's second party, which he learned had been left stranded there when the Aurora had become trapped in pack ice eight months earlier. It is a tribute to Shackleton's remarkable energy, his tireless persistence, and his admirable leadership qualities that all members of the Weddell Sea party survived the extraordinary hazards and dangers encountered by the expedition, as did all but three members of the Ross Sea party. Though overshadowed at the time by the outbreak of World War I, the feats of Shackleton and his companions in this expedition are now recognized as ranking among the most memorable in the annals of Antarctic exploration.

Customer Reviews:

2 out of 5 stars

hard to keep reading December 26, 2007
It is tough to get through this book. Only the first half is about Shakleton's expedition. The rest amounts to a log of the Aurora crew that Shakleton relays second-hand.

The Endurance expedition, itself, is quite a piece of history, but the book does a poor job of showing this. The writing is dry. Killing dogs, penguins and seals is a regular thing. Location and weather are reported on almost every page. He does give a good sense of the cold, however and the food supplies.

3 out of 5 stars

South -- to the end. September 12, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

My case of Shackleton Fever finally ended with this book -- the story of the doomed antarctic expedition as seen through the eyes of Shackleton himself. He emerges from these pages as an intelligent man who is modest about his achievements -- but not so modest as to blunt the excitement of his story. This book also gives many additional details of his attempts to rescue his men, and the often-overlooked story of the not-so-lucky supply expedition that awaited him on the far side of the antarctic ice pack. Perhaps the only fault of the book is that its careful narrative strips some of the mystery away from Shackleton's almost superhuman story. After reading 4 books on the subject, I find I still prefer Lancing's original version (see my review). But true Shackleton buffs won't rest easy until they have seen the original silent movie of the same name, including remarkable cinematography by Frank Hurley -- now available on videotape as a mesmerizing 90 minute movie from the dawn of motion pictures.

--Auralgo

5 out of 5 stars

Great account of adventure and survival in Antarctica. February 26, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This is one of the best survival/adventure stories that you will ever read. The events which take place during the Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917 are re-told by several different points of view and this gives the overall story a multi-faceted persona. The main re-telling of the story of the ENDURANCE is told primarily from Shackleton's point of view and re-affirmed through diary notes of his mates. His point of view is very straight-forward. He doesn't dwell on the painful and depressing conditions as you might expect but, seems to exude a strong, matter-of-fact leadership style which most likely gave his men strength in the face of such disastrous and dangerous conditions. Contrast his account of the ENDURANCE voyage with that of the AURORA which was originally planned to be the expedition's supply ship and you clearly see what I am talking about. The painful, weakened conditions of the AURORA men is agonizing to read...frostbite, scruvy, depression, fatigue, hunger, thirst, and the loss of 3 of their comrades. This is not implying that Shackleton never mentions the poor shape of his conditions or of his crew; it just seems that he doesn't dwell upon it however worried he may have been. Yet, we sense his concern for the failing health of some of his men and we share his pride when they are in fact rescued from Elephant Island and he watches them eat "proper" food for the first time in a very long time. In fact, one can hardly review this book without letting Shackleton, in his own words, describe the joy that found when they encountered when his small party found the whaling village at Stromness Bay, "We had pierced the veneer of outside things. We had "suffered, starved, and triumphed, groveled down yet grapsed at glory, grown bigger in the bigness of the whole."...We had reached the naked soul of men." This is truly one of the greatest adventure stories ever written.