Jonathan
Shackleton en John MacKenna - Shackleton. An Irishman in
Antarctica
De achterflap:
Eighty years after his death, the legend of Ernest Shackleton
and the extraordinary story of the Endurance South Pole
expedition still hold a compelling grip on the public imagination.
Trapped in drifting polar pack-ice for ten months, Ernest
Shackleton and his crew fought for survival against all
the odds. When the Endurance was finally crushed, they were
stranded on ice floes for more than a year before reaching
Elephant Island in April 1916. From there Shackleton and
five of his men embarked on the most remarkable rescue mission
in maritime history, sailing to South Georgia across eight
hundred miles of the world's roughest seas in a small open
boat.
Despite failing to realize his dream of reaching the South
Pole, Shackleton's story lives on because of his unique
qualities of leadership and the extraordinary fact that
all of his men survived. This compelling narrative probes
the profound influence of Shackleton's Irish and Quaker
roots in the making of a great leader. It offers a vivid
portrait of a man at odds with the world and with himself,
whose ambition was tempered by his flawed humanity and egalitarianism.
Here too are the untold stories of Shackleton's upbringing
in Kildare, his time in the Merchant Navy, his 1901 voyage
on the Discovery with Robert Falcon Scott, his
1907 Nimrod expedition, his marriage and love affairs,
his life as a public figure and politician, and the haunting
story of his final, fatal expedition on the Quest.
Drawing on family records, diaries, and letters - and hitherto
unpublished photographs and archive material - this mesmerizing
book takes us beyond the myth to Shackleton; the man, for
whom "optimism is true moral courage," and whose
greatest triumph was that of life over death.
Shackleton: An Irishman in Antarctica is lavishly
illustrated with more than a hundred photographs, maps,
and engravings, some of them appearing in print for the
first time.
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