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A review by knarusk
The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen's Race to the South Pole, Revised and Updated by Roland Huntford
5.0
Inspiring and detailed story of how to properly plan, prepare and execute something ambitious that hasn't been done before.
Huntford has two parallel paths going: to success, and to failure. And two characters that could not be more different with more different endings to their lives. One of my favourite paragraphs at the end of the book summarises the fundamentals: 'Scott wanted to be a hero; Amundsen merely wanted to get to the Pole. Scott, with his instinct for self-dramatization, was playing to the gallery; Amundsen thought of the job in hand, not of an audience.'
The level of detail and research that has gone into this duography is impressive and for all adventure lovers, simply fascinating to read.
Unfortunately, due to the timing of reading this book there are too many unfunny parallels that can be drawn to the Brexit disaster, the most important one being learning from mistakes and making decisions accordingly.
Huntford has two parallel paths going: to success, and to failure. And two characters that could not be more different with more different endings to their lives. One of my favourite paragraphs at the end of the book summarises the fundamentals: 'Scott wanted to be a hero; Amundsen merely wanted to get to the Pole. Scott, with his instinct for self-dramatization, was playing to the gallery; Amundsen thought of the job in hand, not of an audience.'
The level of detail and research that has gone into this duography is impressive and for all adventure lovers, simply fascinating to read.
Unfortunately, due to the timing of reading this book there are too many unfunny parallels that can be drawn to the Brexit disaster, the most important one being learning from mistakes and making decisions accordingly.