The Last Viking unravels the life of the man who stands head and shoulders above all those who raced to map the last corners of the world. In 1900, the four great geographical mysteries-the Northwest Passage, the Northeast Passage, the South Pole, and the North Pole-remained blank spots on the globe. Within twenty years Roald Amundsen would claim all four prizes. Renowned for his determination and technical skills, both feared and beloved by his men, Amundsen is a legend of the heroic age of exploration, which shortly thereafter would be tamed by technology, commerce, and publicity. Feted in his lifetime as an international celebrity, pursued by women and creditors, he died in the Arctic on a rescue mission for an inept rival explorer. Stephen R. Bown has unearthed archival material to give Amundsen's life the grim immediacy of Apsley Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World, the exciting detail of The Endurance, and the suspense of a Jon Krakauer tale. The Last Viking is both a thrilling literary biography and a cracking good story.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents Prologue: The Last of the Vikings - 5 PART ONE: West Chapter One: The Boy from the Mountain Kingdom - 21 Chapter Two: Polar Apprentice - 43 Chapter Three: An Extraordinary Plan - 64 Chapter Four: Where Franklin Died - 84 Chapter Five: An Education at Gjoa Haven -- 102 PART TWO: South Chapter Six: "I Resolved Upon a Coup" - 127 Chapter Seven: The Napoleon of the Poles - 152 Chapter Eight: Dogs and Skis - 176 Chapter Nine: A Featureless Expanse of Snow - 193 PART THREE: East Chapter Ten: A Hero Returns - 217 Chapter Eleven: A New Battlefield - 235 Chapter Twelve: The Frozen Reaches of Tartary - 254 PART FOUR: North Chapter Thirteen: Grounded Dreams - 274 Chapter Fourteen: The Arctic Phoenix - 299 Chapter Fifteen: The Dirigible and the Fascist -- 319 Chapter Sixteen: A Massed Attack on the Polar Regions - 339 PART FIVE: Lost Chapter Seventeen: No More Poles to Conquer - 361 Epilogue: The End of the Heroic Age - 382
Author Biography
Stephen R. Bown is the author ofScurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner and A Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail, selected as one of the Globe and Mail's Top 100 books of 2004, and A Most Damnable Invention: Dynamite, Nitrates and the Making of the Modern World, selected for the Scientific American Book Club, the History Book Club and the Quality Paperback Book Club. He lives with his wife and two young children near Banff in the Canadian Rockies. www.stephenrbown.net
