|
| 
 enlarge | Author: Kelly Tyler-lewis
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $6.75
You Save: $19.20 (74%)
New (10) Used (11) from $5.15
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 76853
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.3
Dewey Decimal Number: 919.8904
ASIN: B000RWELU6
Publication Date: April 20, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Brand new! Perfect condition! Fast shipping - all orders are shipped within 24 hrs. of purchase (SAE1)
|
| Customer Reviews:
The Strong Men January 9, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I have read nearly every book in print dealing with the exploration and saga of Shackleton and his men. Kelly Tyler-Lewis' book The Lost Men rates as one of the best. The "harrowing story" of these hearty men stranded in the desolate Ross Sea is incredible, for lack of words.
Duty-bound, these men laid the stores for a transantarctic voyage that would never materialize. These were men who risked their own lives to ensure the safety of others whose whereabouts were unknown.
The Lost Men is an epic struggle of man versus the ravages of nature and reveals the triumphs and the tragedies involved. It is a book of determination, leadership and accountability.
Of special interest are the generous notes included dealing with such issues as diet (e.g., Their diet lacked nearly all essential vitamins necessary for such a feat), body temperature (e.g., One man recorded a body temperature of 94.2), and navigation of pack ice (e.g. in 2002 it took two Coast Guard ships over two weeks to break through ice roughly thirty miles to Hut point.)
The Lost Men is an exciting and riveting book. As a two-time traveler to McMurdo Sound, I highly recommend this work.
The Most Useless Journey in the World August 25, 2006
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
"The Lost Men", by Kelly Tyler-Lewis is the sister book to the original saga of Sir Ernest Shcakelton's journey to Antarctica. The original called "The Worst Journey in the World" tells of Shackelton's failed expedition to cross Antarctica. His ship the Endurance was smashed by ice in the Weddell Sea and his men stranded until their eventual rescue by Shackelton himself after a harrowing journey in a 22 foot open boat across the southern ocean.
Shackelton's Ross Sea Party, the subject of "The Lost Men", is the other half of Shackelton's ill-fated expedition. The Ross Sea party was charged with sailing to the opposite side of Antarctica from the Wedell Sea and laying storage depots of food and supplies along Shackelton's route. The harrowing saga of these men to lay these depots is brilliantly described by historian Tyler-Lewis. Despite extreme conditions, shortages of supplies, faulty leadership and blizzard after blizzard, the Ross Sea party managed to lay supply depots along Shackelton's route and waited for him in vain. The whole expedition proved to be all for naught as Shackelton's plans went awry. Two of the men from the Ross Sea party succumbed to the conditions having been weakened by the vitamin-C deficiency disease scurvy.
If you like adventure novels this one is for you. If you have read "The Worst Journey in the World" this book will complete the saga.
The writing is crisp and well done. Tyler-Lewis has done a fantastic job to bring history to life. You can feel the pain and suffering of the men in her words. Bravo!
How the choice and use of dogs may have affected the outcome August 17, 2006
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
The Lost Men: The Harrowing Saga of Shackleton's Ross Sea Party is not about Inuit Sled Dogs. It isn't even mostly a story of the largely mixed breed, non-polar spitz, pathetic lot of twenty-four dogs that actually survived the voyage to the Ross Sea side of Antarctica and were expected to relay tons of supplies along a treacherous route to establish a line of life-sustaining depots. There is no doubt, however, that the hindsight of "what ifs" and "what should have been done" regarding the dogs loomed large throughout the pages of this book. The year was 1913 and a war soon to engulf the world was heating up in Europe. Nevertheless, Sir Ernest Shackleton would embark on his audacious plan. He was motivated by the death of his fellow countryman and nearest rival, Robert Falcon Scott, who froze to death while coming in second to Norwegian Roald Amundsen's stunning achievement, the first to reach the South Pole. In his haste and relentless pursuit of glory, Shackleton put together a flawed strategy. As the pages of The Lost Men flew by, I came to understand how Shackleton was no different from so many others of his ilk. While he had some fine qualities, he had a colossal ego and was unwilling to let such details as a looming world war, acquiring suitable transportation, finding qualified men, ensuring an orderly command and securing adequate funds stand in his way once his mind had been seduced by the prospect of his country's adulation. The vicious Antarctic weather, its wind-driven seas and massive ice pack, a blind adherence to British military ritual, and a lack of commitment to collect up the right dogs for the job helped ensure the mission's fate. In a nutshell, the plan was for Shackleton, some of his men and the majority of the ninety-nine dogs, collected in Canada, to sail on the ship Endurance to one side of Antarctica while the Aurora and the balance of the crew and remaining dogs would navigate to the other side. The Ross Sea Party, ten men from the Aurora, would then be responsible for laying depots enabling Shackleton and his men to complete the first crossing of the continent, promoted as The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. And then everyone would triumphantly sail back to Great Britain on the Aurora whereupon Shackleton would be acclaimed as the hero. A fundamental plot of this story details the antagonism between Aeneas Lionel Acton Mackintosh who, despite lack of any polar experience, Shackleton made Commander of the shore party, and Ernest Edward Joyce who, although assigned the role of Sledging Equipment and Dogs, enjoyed no decision-making authority regarding the care, training and use of the animals. Indeed it was Mackintosh who insisted on calling all of those shots despite having not one shred of skill or understanding of working sledge dogs, even though Joyce did. The odds were already against the dogs. They were sick, malnourished, parasite riddled, infected by fight wounds, not socialized into cohesive teams, unfamiliar with commands given by unskilled mushers who didn't know their original names. Putting a man like Mackintosh (who was not inclined to listen to the voice of reason and experience, let alone that of a subordinate) in charge of when and how the dogs were to be used, spelled disaster. Duty bound to follow Mackintosh's orders, right or wrong, the Ross Sea Party's success was in doubt. By the end of the first disastrous year, all but six of the dogs were dead, the depot-laying operation was far from complete and the men had no inkling of Shackleton's progress in their direction or if their failure to that point would spell doom for their commander-in-chief. Providing adequate communication was another of Shackleton's shortcomings. Between the end of December, 1914, when the Aurora steamed toward Antarctica from Australia, and January, 1917, when the landing party's seven survivors and their three remaining dogs were recovered, neither Shackleton's contingent nor the Ross Sea Party had any idea of the other's outcome. It wasn't until their rescue that the Ross Sea Party, miraculously having fulfilled their leader's orders to lay the all his required depots, learned that Shackleton was never able to set foot on the continent in the first place. Inuit Sled Dog enthusiasts will recognize that had Shackleton insisted on acquisition of more suitable draught dogs, and had given authority to a man competent in their training and use, The Lost Men might have had no reason to be written. Although it surely cannot be said that the right dogs would have all survived and would be singularly responsible for ensuring mission's success without enduring horrific hardship, the story of The Lost Men is a case in point of how not using the far better suited Inuit Dog can and has resulted undue suffering. This is a splendid narrative, beautifully written, replete with minute details, background and history preceding Shackleton's failed expedition. It offers readers comprehensive understanding of what drives men to dangerous places, and the socio-political-economic forces affecting their survival. The reader becomes intimately familiar with the lives of the characters before, during the expedition and, for the `lucky' ones, after their return to civilization. Kelly Tyler-Lewis leaves no stone unturned, including those elements relating to the dogs, in creating a yarn that will leave readers shivering.
A Fantastic Nonfiction Adventure August 4, 2006
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
Kelly Tyler-Lewis' The Lost Men is the first full account of the Ross Sea Party side of Ernest Shackleton's attempt to cross Antarctica during World War I. The book simultaneously tells a harrowing tale of adventure as well as exemplifying outstanding historical research. Until this book, the men of the Ross Sea Party were truly lost and voiceless. Tyler-Lewis located diaries, photographs, and even film that no other historian could find. The result of her research is an outstanding, clear, and concise work of nonfiction.
The book also has the feel of a good novel. Tyler-Lewis skillfully blends research with a great adventure story. She sculpts the narrative to keep a heightened sense of suspense and wonder. She develops the complicated characters of the men in dramatic fashion, often using their own words (from their diaries and other sources) to great effect. The reader truly gets a sense of what was going through their minds and what motivated their actions.
I suggest not viewing the photograph section of the book until you have finished, because it gives away events that occur later in the book. This is a difficult thing to do, indeed, because you grow attached to these men and want to see what they looked like.
The only complaint I have is that the chapters detailing the crew of the ship Aurora are not nearly as interesting as the chapters about the men who are actually on Antarctica. But this is a small complaint. Overall, I was interested from beginning to end. I highly recommend this book and look forward to other works by Kelly Tyler-Lewis.
Antarctic Adventures, Part 2 April 29, 2006
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
In 1998, Caroline Alexander published "The Endurance", her classic re-telling of Ernest Shackleton's expedition to the Antarctic. Stranded for two years on the south side of the Antarctic, Shackleton led his entire crew back to Argentina. And here, Ms. Alexander story comes to the end with a brief epilogue. The tale of his re-supply expedition concurrently stranded on the northern side of the Antarctic was mentioned in passing. The Ross Sea Party has been ignored historically, possibly because Shackleton was a larger-than-life figure, or because there was a visual record of his expedition (the photographs accompanied Ms. Alexander's text) or because Shackleton reached civilization first with his adventures before going back to rescue the second expedition.
Ms. Tyler-Lewis redresses this neglect in "The Lost Men." The mission of the Ross Sea expedition was to lay supply depots on the northern half above the South Pole. Shackleton meant to transverse the entire continent from the south to the South Pole to the Ross Sea -- he needed those depots to survive the journey home. Ironically, neither expedition was aware that the other was stranded. With no radio communication, the Ross Sea Party went ahead and walked 1,300 miles to established supply depots that were no longer needed. Ms. Tyler-Lewis superbly utilized the diaries of the survivors to describe their emotional and physical suffering for two years. "The Lost Men" is a well-told tale of the will of these men to accomplish their mission and to survive against the elements.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
