Antarctica Books - Recent Releases

Eric Marshall - Shackleton's Critic
Angie Butler and Beau Riffenburgh

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Eric Stewart Marshall was part of Shackleton's Nimrod expedition 1907-1909 and one of the 4 man team including Shackleton who came within 97 miles of the South Pole before turning back, a new farthest south at the time. A month and a half later on the way back, his individual heroics saved his three companions who would otherwise have perished. Two years later he was the first westerner to explore the interior of New Guinea. Marshall received neither fame nor fortune from these achievements and became ever more embittered. As time passed, much of Marshall's spleen was directed at Shackleton.

This only biography of Marshall was difficult to research though Antarctic authors and scholars Angie Butler and Beau Riffenburgh succeeded following the discovery of a diary written by Marshall not held by any institution and so not subject to copyright.

Paul - webmaster

When Your Life Depends on It
Extreme decision making lessons from the Antarctic
Brad Borkan and David Hirzel

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An interesting and unique book that takes six expeditions from the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Scott, 1901-1904 and 1910-1913, Amundsen 1910-1912, Shackleton 1907-1909 and 1914-1917and Mawson 1911-1914, and considers them sometimes alone and sometimes in comparison.

The basic premise is that the book will look at the decisions faced and made by the protagonists, whether they be the leaders and planners of the expeditions or by the participants finding themselves in possibly unexpected, but certainly unwanted and difficult situations where they have to make a decision often with life or death consequences for themselves alone or for their whole party.

As such the book tells a number of boys-own-adventure type stories (all historically factual) and presents questions of a "would you do it?", "would you do A or B?" manner.

I really like the fact that the book presents vignettes of incidents on the expeditions that can be passed by without sufficient emphasis when reading the usual literature about the subject, focusing on pivotal events and considering the motivations and emotions of the men involved. This was at a time when survival techniques in Antarctica were being learned the hardest way, men went out and did things they thought best, sometimes had a thoroughly miserable, occasionally near-fatal time of it and then learned never to do it quite that way again. It gives a good introduction to the explorers and expeditions it covers, if readers are not familiar with the full stories, they will be encouraged to further reading.

What I'm not so keen on is the eye on the "self help" market whereby people selling maintenance contracts for photocopiers (for instance) see themselves heroically going out there and able to take something from such writings. "Here I am in a car park in Milton Keynes, it's raining and I've lost my catalogue, I need to rescue this contract, what lesson can I learn from Mawson looking forwards to a dead husky's paw in his hoosh that evening?". One is fish and the other is fowl.

It's an interesting take on stories that stands alone or will be a welcome doorway to step through to another world for you to explore, I just don't need to keep being asked things by teacher looking over my shoulder.

Paul - webmaster