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Shackleton's Forgotten Expedition: The Voyage of the Nimrod

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Everyone has heard about Ernest Shackleton's remarkable Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, when his ship Endurance was crushed in the ice and Shackleton made his epic open-boat journey to South Georgia to help rescue his men. What most people don't know was that the first expedition Shackleton led to the Antarctic was every bit as full of derring-do and death-defying moments as his later one. Moreover, historically it was much more significant than his other ventures.

"Nimrod" is the story of that first expedition, when Shackleton, with no official support and pulling everything together on a wing and a prayer, led a small group of inexperienced men to the Antarctic. This party overcame numerous challenges to accomplish remarkable achievements, including making the first ascent of the great volcano Mount Erebus, being the first men to reach the South Magnetic Pole, discovering and ascending what was the largest known glacier in the world, being the first to reach the heart of the Antarctic plateau, and shattering the record for the farthest south ever reached, by coming to within 97 miles of the South Pole. But each sledging party that went out from base camp almost ended in death and disaster, and it is part of the enthralling telling of this tale that trouble builds upon trouble until only hardihood, courage, and a great deal of luck could pull Shackleton and his comrades out of the fire.

This book is a model of what history can be at its best: a masterful combination of scholarly research and compelling dramatic narrative that keeps one desperately reading throughout the night in order to find out what happens next. Riffenburgh has an obvious delight in the delicious details and inter-connections of history, and he knows how to mix a bizarre collection of eccentric characters and curious settings with lavishly descriptive accounts enriched by a healthy dose of suspense, humor, pathos, and gossip.

One of the major weaknesses of virtually all of the accounts of polar exploration published in recent years is that they have made no effort to put the myriad of ventures to the snow and ice into their place in history. Why were people so interested in the Antarctic as to be willing to put their lives on the line to explore it? What relation did it have to the imperial mindset dominant a century ago. How was it related to the exploration of Africa or the mountainous centre of Asia? This is the first tale of an expedition to look beyond the events of one trip and to answer all of these questions. It gives the rare but incredibly valuable insight into not only what happened by why, and it allows one to see polar exploration finally put into its historical context. One finishes "Nimrod" having been not only immensely entertained, but enlightened.

This is a book that, in its vivid detail, the energetic manner of its telling, and its insights into history, brings scholarship and engrossing writing into one. It is easy to suspect that Alan Moorehead, Peter Hopkirk, or Simon Winchester would be proud to have written it.

Today you can look at what's going on at the South Pole by simply pointing your browser at: www.phys.unsw.edu.au/southpolediaries/webcam.html. It's hard to imagine that in 1908 Shackleton went through so much trouble trying to get there and not making it. I look at the pictures of him using pony's to pull sledges. And his boat, the Nimrod, with her sails set; you almost want to say, "are you kidding."

There is a lot of discussion in this book about the conflict between Shackleton and Scott. It has been said that if you really wanted to get somewhere on an expedition, you should go with Scott. But if you're priority was more on getting home alive, go with Shackleton. This was, I think never so evident as in Shackleton's next voyage in the Endurance.

This book focuses on the voyage of the Nimrod, as it says in the sub-title, but it is more than that. The insight Mr. Rifenburgh shown in his understanding of the people, the way he brings them to life with good story telling and his grasp of the overall view of the explorations make this book an absolute delight.

The book is a good overview of the events, achievements and characters of the Nimrod expedition and appears to be well researched. However, I got the impression that the author really wanted to write a book about imperialism, especially after much of the first third of the book and the concluding chapter of the book focused on this subject as much or more in some places than on the expedition. I understand that the author is trying to provide the reader with some background on society and the issues of the time which would have influenced the explorers of the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration, but it seemed like way too much space was devoted to the subject of imperialism and its influence. Much of the beginning of the book also has a lot of information on Shackleton's life, and the book also recounts Scott's first Antarctic voyage, which Shackleton was also a major part of. While in some respects I appreciated this recap, I wish there had been more detailed information on the Nimrod expedition itself, as this is the expedition that one expects to read about due to the title and book description. If there were a certain or limited number of pages this book was allowed to be, it would have been better to devote more of those pages to the topic promised rather than spending a good third of the space on background information.

For my taste, the Nimrod expedition is a better read than the Endurance's and that is saying a lot. For one thing, the ascent of Mt.Erebus is great fun, and the Magnetic Pole trek of Douglas Mawson, Prof. David and Dr Allister Mackay will drive you nuts! The interactions between those 3, the shift of leadership, the way Mackay treated David, all of those are worth reading.

Finally, the Polar Party dash (Shackelton, Wild, Adams and Marshall) is so interesting, so vivid you won't be able to think of nothing else.

What I found the most interesting were the quotes from Frank Wild's diary. He isn't pulling any punches. He's not wearing kid's gloves.

All in all, a book worth reading more than once!

Picked this book up at a book sale for cheap, and could not put it down! The writing is clear and crisp, the tale is epic and the twists and turns in the plot regarding the voyage of the Nimrod keep you hooked! You could not make this stuff up. The author has a true passion and love for the topic, and he pulls you in.

After reading this book I unexpectedbly became an Ernest Shackleton and Antarctic exploration fan. Next I read The Lost Men and am reading Endurance. This is a thorough history that reads like an adventure novel. Highly recommended!

I have a bookshelf that groans under the weight of tomes about Antarctica. No one has forgotten the Nimrod Expedition that knows anything about the "Heroic Era", so I found the title to be at least presumptuous. So let's get to the critique: Riffenburgh at first concentrates on the historical context, the post-Victorian Edwardian Era of the UK, which was gratifying. I didn't know that the Presbyterian elite that ruled Ireland were called "the Pale". From that I assumed the origin of the expression "beyond the pale". Purely a synthesis on my part. After that, I was happy to hear about the comparatively numerous encounters with orcas on the sea ice. Previously I'd only heard about photographer Ponting's "close call" on the ice floes. I submit that they were only curious, having never seen humans before. It was clear from the narrative the killer's engaged in much "periscoping", hauling their upper bodies out of the water and "scoping out" these weird new things. Since there has never been a documented account of killer whales - in the wild -attacking a human being, I prefer to believe these early 20th century types assumed a nefarious motive on the whales' part where perhaps none existed. Now that we know far more about them I suspect the explorer's worries were overblown. In an orca's case, I'm pretty sure they didn't think these guys were seals. In other news, killer whales exist in Antarctica. That would make them pole-to-pole mammalian predators. If I was them, maybe I'd want to knock one of these boys into the water so I could echo-sound 'em with my primary sensor. Just my theory. The author addresses, but doesn't dwell on, the misery that is man-hauling. That was fine with me, I'd already been through it in previous books. For all that, caloric requirements, cold's effect on the human body, read "Race for the Pole" by Ranulph Fiennes. To really wallow in it, read Roland Huntford's stuff. When I started reading on this subject the pickings were pretty thin (early 90's). Now, I can't keep up with the books being written. Perhaps that's the Discovery Channel, and Nature Channel, March of the Penguins, etc ad infinitum. Now, what I want to see is an effort to recover the tracked vehicle that sank through the ice in the bay - it's only 600 feet deep. Bring that thing up. It seems that the Scott and Shackleton expeditions resulted in the first caterpillar-tracked vehicle ever invented. The author adds a few bits of new knowledge while thankfully avoiding as much as possible well-trodden ground. I was primed for more Scott-bashing; he avoids it though I sensed he wanted to. Read this simply to add to your knowledge, if such is your bent, about Antarctic exploration. To know everything that's been written about it requires this; synthesize your own opinions only after your own bookshelf is filled with this research, done for you at minimal cost, and for that, my hat is off to this author and the rest. BTW, if melting icecaps drowns our coastal cities, perhaps an ameliorating factor would be that Antarctica would become the most beautiful place in the world, like Alaska's inside passage, only a lot more of it. Nature always balances the books.