Shackleton: An Irishman in Antarctica

Publication Date: Jan 2003Eighty years after his death, the legend of Ernest Shackleton and the extraordinary story of the Endurance South Pole expedition of 1914-17 still holds a grip on the public imagination. Trapped in drifting polar pack ice for ten months, Shackleton and his crew fought for survival. When the Endurance was crushed, they were stranded on the ice-floes for over a year before reaching Elephant Island. From there Shackleton and his five men embarked upon one of maritime history's most remarkable rescue missions, sailing to South Georgia across 800 miles of the world's roughest seas in a small open boat. This book probes deep into family history to reveal the profound influence of Ernest Shackleton's Irish Quaker roots in the making of a great leader. The fruit of years of intensive research, Shackleton: An Irishman in Antarctica paints a vivid portrait of a man whose ambition was always tempered by his humanity and egalitarianism. Here too are the untold stories of Shackleton's upbringing in Kildare; his time in the Merchant Navy; his marriage and love affairs; his life as public man and politician; and the haunting story of his final - and fatal - 1921-22 expedition on the Quest. Drawing on family records, diaries and letters - and hitherto unpublished photographs and archive material - this mesmerizing book takes us beyond the myth to Shackleton the man, the hero who eschewed imperial hierarchy, whose greatest triumph was life over death.