Description

In August 1914, days prior to the outbreak of the First World-War, the renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty seven set sail for the South Atlantic in search of the final unclaimed prize in the real history of exploration: the first crossing by walking of the Antarctic region. Weaving a treacherous path through the freezing Weddell Sea, they'd come within eighty five miles of the destination when their ship, Endurance, was trapped fast in the ice-pack. Soon the ship was crushed like matchwood, leaving the crew stranded on the floes. Their ordeal would last for twenty months, and they'd make two near-fatal attempts to flee by open boat before their final rescue.Drawing upon previously unavailable sources, Caroline Alexander gives us a riveting account of Shackleton's journey--among history's greatest epics of survival.