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attoliseugenides 's review for:
it started off really slow, but i really enjoyed this book! it's a great resource for anyone who wants to get into polar exploration history. it won't go deep into each expedition, but i find it a fairly ambitious attempt at a narrative of half a century of feats and failures.
it's no gilded painting though, and one of the things i appreciate about fleming is while he describes the expeditions as stories of adventure and thrill, he doesn't shy away from pointing out the malice, prejudice, and low regard for lives lost that pervaded in the admiralty during this period. the book ends with a neat glossary of the key characters in the expeditions, and on reading them, one realizes that very few of these men (whether they died early or not) ever lived a happy life.
it's no gilded painting though, and one of the things i appreciate about fleming is while he describes the expeditions as stories of adventure and thrill, he doesn't shy away from pointing out the malice, prejudice, and low regard for lives lost that pervaded in the admiralty during this period. the book ends with a neat glossary of the key characters in the expeditions, and on reading them, one realizes that very few of these men (whether they died early or not) ever lived a happy life.