BOOK REVIEW Review of Race for the South Pole: the expedition diaries

• Main Author: Of Scott
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Roland; South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.638.416; http://www.polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/download/18741/pdf_1/

Roland Huntford is the grand old man among polar historians. After his classic Scott and Amundsen in 1979 (later editions were retitled, The last place on Earth), he wrote a series of books on Norwegian and British polar heroes as well as a thorough study of the history of skiing (2006). Huntford challenged the British admiration of Robert Falcon Scott’s scientific programme and great courage*and insisted that Roald Amundsen’s expedi-tion was far better prepared and carried out. Huntford’s scathing criticism of Scott’s fatal choices and lack of competence dared to assault this cherished British polar icon in a manner that would be unthinkable for Norwegian authors. Before the centennial anniversary in 2011 Huntford published a source-book with the expedition diaries of