Book description
The story of Australia s most famous polar explorer and the giants
from the heroic age of polar exploration: Scott, Amundsen and
ShackletonSir Douglas Mawson, born in 1882 and knighted in 1914, remains
Australia's greatest Antarctic explorer. On 2 December 1911, his
Australasian Antarctic Expedition left Hobart to explore the virgin
frozen coastline below Australia, 2000 miles of which had never felt the
tread of a human foot. He was on his way to fulfil a national dream he
had first conceived three years earlier, while on his first trip to the
frozen continent on the Nimrod expedition under the leadership of the
charismatic Anglo-Irishman Sir Ernest Shackleton. Even as Mawson and his
men were approaching Antarctica, two other famous Antarctic explorers
were already engaged in nothing less than a race to become the first men
to reach the South Pole. While Roald Amundsen of Norway, with his small
team, was racing with dogs along one route, England's legendary Scott of
the Antarctic, with his far larger team, was relying primarily on ponies
and 'man-hauling' to get there along another. As Mawson and his men make
their home on the windiest place on earth and prepare for their own
record-breaking treks, with devastating drama to be their constant
companion, the stories of Amundsen and Scott similarly play out. With
his trademark in-depth research, FitzSimons provides a compelling
portrait of these great Antarctic explorers. For the first time, he
weaves together their legendary feats into one thrilling account,
bringing the jaw-dropping events of this bygone era dazzlingly back to
life. Peter FitzSimons is a journalist with The SMH and Sun-Herald. He
is also a regular TV commentator, a former radio presenter (very
successfully, with Mike Carlton on Radio 2UE) and is also a former
national representative rugby union player. Peter is the author of over
20 books - including Tobruk, Kokoda, Batavia and biographies of Nancy
Wake Kim Beazley Nick Farr-Jones Les Darcy, Steve Waugh and John
Eales, and is Australia's biggest-selling non-fiction author of the last
ten years. Earlier this year, Peter was named a Member of the Order of
Australia for service to literature as a biographer, sports journalist
and commentator, and to the community through contributions to
conservation, disability care, social welfare and sporting
organisations. He lives with his wife, Lisa Wilkinson, and their three
children in Sydney.
