Book description
For centuries British navigators dreamt of finding the Northwest
Passage ? the route over the top of North America that would open up the
fabulous wealth of Asia to British merchants. We know now that, while
several such passages exist, during the period of the search by sailing
vessels they were choked by impassable ice. But this knowledge was
slowly won, as expedition after expedition, under the most terrible
conditions, slowly filled in their patchy and sometimes fatally
misleading charts. Arctic Labyrinth tells this extraordinary story with
great skill and brilliance. From the tiny, woefully equipped ships of
the first Tudor expeditions to the icebreakers and nuclear submarines of
the modern era, Glyn Williams describes how every form of ingenuity has
been used to break through or try to get round the nightmarish ice
barriers set in a maze of sterile islands. The heroism, folly and horror
of these voyages seem almost unbelievable, with entire ships crushed,
mass starvation, epics of endurance ? and all in pursuit of a goal that
ultimately proved futile. Williams?s book is both an important work of
exploration and naval history, and a remarkable study in human delusion
and fortitude. Glyn Williams is Emeritus Professor of History at the
University of London and former president of the Hakluyt Society. He is
author of a group of remarkable and original accounts of major naval
voyages, including Anson's voyage around the world (
The Prize of All the Oceans
) and Arctic exploration in the eighteenth century (Voyages of Delusion
).
