Book description
1912 was an incredible year, marking the height of the Heroic Age of
Exploration. Curiosity about Antarctica was at fever pitch, and
between 1910 and 1914 five teams of intrepid explorers embarked on the
greatest race of the era, to travel beyond the edges of the known
world and conquer this last great frontier.
Pitted against each other were Captain Robert Falcon Scott for
Britain, Roald Amundsen for Norway, Sir Douglas Mawson for
Australasia, Wilhelm Filchner for Germany and Nobu Shirase for Japan.
'Conquest of the South Pole!' trumpeted the world's newspapers in
March 1912. Amundsen had won. But behind all the headlines, there was
a much bigger story.
The exploits of these larger-than-life explorers, often narrated in
their own words, thrilled and enthralled the world; the limits of our
planet were pushed all the way to the South Pole and the door to
Antarctica flung wide open. Drawing on his own polar experiences,
Chris Turney reveals why 1912 witnessed the dawn of a new age in our
understanding of the natural world. The tales of endurance,
self-sacrifice and technological innovation that marked 1912 laid the
foundation for modern scientific exploration and have continued to
inspire future generations.
1912 is an awe-inspiring journey - part nail-biting
adventure, part scientific history - through an ancient and
fascinating land.
CHRIS TURNEY is an Australian and British geologist, described by
the Saturday Times as 'the new David Livingstone'. He is
Professor of Climate Change at the University of New South Wales and
the author of Ice, Mud and Blood: Lessons from Climates Past
and Bones, Rocks and Stars: The Science of when Things
Happened. In 2007 he was awarded the Sir Nicholas Shackleton Medal
for outstanding young scientist for pioneering research into past
climate change and dating the past and in 2009 received the Geological
Society of London's Bigsby Medal for services to geology.
Twitter: @ProfChrisTurney / www. christurney. com
