Captain Scott
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Captain Scott Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
Biased. Adds nothing new.
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Ranulph Fiennes attempts to resurrect Scott's reputation as a great polar explorer after several books, including Roland Huntford's [[ASIN:0375754741 The Last Place on Earth]], exposed Scott's incompetence and weak leadership.
The problem with this book is that Fiennes has no new evidence to offer. He merely shrugs off all the criticisms of Scott's last expedition: the use of ponies instead of dogs, the reliance on man-hauling, Scott's failure to lay enough supplies far enough South the previous year, inadequate food and clothing, Scott's last-minute decision to take 5 men on the final leg of the journey and Scott's confusing final orders regarding any relief party.
Fiennes also shrugs off widespread allegations of Scott's weak leadership with ad hominem attacks on Amundsen, Huntford and Shackleton as well as just about everyone who quarreled with Scott at one time or another -- which is a fairly long list of people I might add. Hardly convincing.
The only new information that has come out since Huntford's book was published is Susan Solomon's [[ASIN:0300099215 The Coldest March: Scott's Fatal Antarctic Expedition]], which claims that Scott's expedition was doomed by unusally cold weather in March. Solomon however admits that Scott had fairly average weather for the first 4 months of his journey, and the below-average temperatures that Scott faced in March were not exceptionally cold by Antarctic standards. Fiennes tries to argue that Scott would have made it back easily but for the weather, but shrugs off the fact that one of Scott's party was already dead by March, and the fact that the last supporting party to turn back barely made it home alive in February -- with one of them suffering from a severe case of scurvy. Amundsen for his part understood that there was safety in speed, and was already out to sea when the cold weather hit.
If you're interested in the history of Polar exploration by all means read this book, but read Huntford's book first. There's really no getting around the fact that in identical conditions Amundsen beat Scott to the Pole by 34 days, and got home with relative ease. It's really stretching it to say that it was all a matter of luck. |
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