Contemporary writing on the Antarctic reflects our gruesomely unheroic age. Men with frozen beards produce accounts of epic struggles replete with snapped-off digits and self-congratulatory morals about winning through and, more importantly, beating the other guy. If the other guy inconveniently ends up getting there first, he is inevitably revealed to have cheated. I remember a picture editor twenty years ago telling me that when selecting the colour plates for such a book, the author (a contributor to one of the volumes under review here) issued the order, ‘There must be no photographs depicting my companion ahead of me.’

Subscribe or Sign In to read the full article