In Gilded Age America, Arctic explorers were fabulous celebrities -
assured of riches and near-immortality so long as they reached the
North Pole first. Of the many attempts to meet that goal, three
American expeditions, launched from the Russian archipelago of
Franz Josef Land, ended in abject failure, their exploits consigned
to near-oblivion. Even so, these ventures - the Wellman expedition
(1898-99), the Baldwin-Ziegler (1901-2), and the Fiala-Ziegler
(1903-5) - have much to tell us about the personalities, politics,
and economics of exploration in their day. In The Greatest Show in
the Arctic, the first book to chronicle all three expeditions, P.
J. Capelotti explores what went right and what, in the end, went
tragically wrong. The cast of colorful characters from the Franz
Josef Land forays included Walter Wellman, a Chicago journalist and
bon vivant running from debts, his mistress, and an illegitimate
daughter; Evelyn Briggs Baldwin, a deranged meteorologist with a
fetish for balloons and a passion for Swedish conserves; and
Anthony Fiala, a pious photographer in search of God in the Arctic.
Featuring an international cast of supporting characters worthy of
a three-ring circus, The Greatest Show in the Arctic follows each
of the three expeditions in turn, from spectacular feats of
financing to their bitter ends. Along the way, the explorers
accumulated considerable geographic knowledge and left a legacy of
place-names. Through close study of the expeditions' journals,
Capelotti reveals that the Franz Josef Land endeavors foundered
chiefly because of poor leadership and internal friction, not for
lack of funding, as historians have previously suspected.
Presenting tales of noble intentions, novel inventions, and epic
miscalculations, The Greatest Show in the Arctic brings fresh life
to a unique and underappreciated story of American exploration.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
