Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 1101964839
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1090
Book Description
The landmark trilogy of cutting-edge science, international politics, and the real-life ramifications of climate change—updated and abridged into a single novel More than a decade ago, bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson began a groundbreaking series of near-future eco-thrillers—Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, and Sixty Days and Counting—that grew increasingly urgent and vital as global warming continued unchecked. Now, condensed into one volume and updated with the latest research, this sweeping trilogy gains new life as Green Earth, a chillingly realistic novel that plunges readers into great floods, a modern Ice Age, and the political fight for all our lives. The Arctic ice pack averaged thirty feet thick in midwinter when it was first measured in the 1950s. By the end of the century it was down to fifteen. One August the ice broke. The next year the breakup started in July. The third year it began in May. That was last year. It’s a muggy summer in Washington, D.C., as Senate environmental staffer Charlie Quibler and his scientist wife, Anna, work to call attention to the growing crisis of global warming. But as they fight to align the extraordinary march of modern technology with the awesome forces of nature, fate puts an unusual twist on their efforts—one that will pit science against politics in the heart of the coming storm. Praise for the Science in the Capital trilogy “Perhaps it’s no coincidence that one of our most visionary hard sci-fi writers is also a profoundly good nature writer—all the better to tell us what it is we have to lose.”—Los Angeles Times “An unforgettable demonstration of what can go wrong when an ecological balance is upset.”—The New York Times Book Review “Absorbing and convincing.”—Nature
What on Earth Can Go Wrong
Author: Richard Fenning
Publisher: Eye Books (US&CA)
ISBN: 1785632450
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
Richard Fenning has spent three decades advising multinational companies on volatile geopolitics and severe security crises. He was CEO of the British firm Control Risks for 14 years. His career coincided with the glory years of globalization, the rise of China, the tumult of the Middle East wars, a new vicious form of terrorism, the transforming impact of digital technology, and America's retreat from leadership. Offering him a rare insight into what happens when people and organizations come under enormous stress, it dispelled any illusions that the world is ordered, predictable, or fair. But amid the chaos and upheaval, he also found humanity and humor. In a whirlwind tour that takes us from the battlefields of Iraq to the back streets of Bogotà, from the steamy Niger delta to the chill of Putin's Moscow, he looks back with wit and insight on the people and places he has got to know, while also offering some timely thoughts about the relationship between risk and danger in a terrifyingly changeable world.
Publisher: Eye Books (US&CA)
ISBN: 1785632450
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
Richard Fenning has spent three decades advising multinational companies on volatile geopolitics and severe security crises. He was CEO of the British firm Control Risks for 14 years. His career coincided with the glory years of globalization, the rise of China, the tumult of the Middle East wars, a new vicious form of terrorism, the transforming impact of digital technology, and America's retreat from leadership. Offering him a rare insight into what happens when people and organizations come under enormous stress, it dispelled any illusions that the world is ordered, predictable, or fair. But amid the chaos and upheaval, he also found humanity and humor. In a whirlwind tour that takes us from the battlefields of Iraq to the back streets of Bogotà, from the steamy Niger delta to the chill of Putin's Moscow, he looks back with wit and insight on the people and places he has got to know, while also offering some timely thoughts about the relationship between risk and danger in a terrifyingly changeable world.
The Climate Diet
Author: Paul Greenberg
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 059329677X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Book Description
“Useful and relevant. . . . Greenberg’s writing is clear and concise. Each section starts with easy tips . . . then wades into bigger, trickier concepts.” —New York Times Book Review A celebrated writer on food and sustainability offers fifty straightforward, impactful rules for climate-friendly living We all understand just how dire the circumstances facing our planet are and that we all need to do our part to stem the tide of climate change. When we look in the mirror, we can admit that we desperately need to go on a climate diet. But the task of cutting down our carbon emissions feels overwhelming and the discipline required hard to summon. With The Climate Diet, award-winning food and environmental writer Paul Greenberg offers us the practical, accessible guide we all need. It contains fifty achievable steps we can take to live our daily lives in a way that's friendlier to the planet--from what we eat, how we live at home, how we travel, and how we lobby businesses and elected officials to do the right thing. Chock-full of simple yet revelatory guidance, The Climate Diet empowers us to cast aside feelings of helplessness and start making positive changes for the good of our planet.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 059329677X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Book Description
“Useful and relevant. . . . Greenberg’s writing is clear and concise. Each section starts with easy tips . . . then wades into bigger, trickier concepts.” —New York Times Book Review A celebrated writer on food and sustainability offers fifty straightforward, impactful rules for climate-friendly living We all understand just how dire the circumstances facing our planet are and that we all need to do our part to stem the tide of climate change. When we look in the mirror, we can admit that we desperately need to go on a climate diet. But the task of cutting down our carbon emissions feels overwhelming and the discipline required hard to summon. With The Climate Diet, award-winning food and environmental writer Paul Greenberg offers us the practical, accessible guide we all need. It contains fifty achievable steps we can take to live our daily lives in a way that's friendlier to the planet--from what we eat, how we live at home, how we travel, and how we lobby businesses and elected officials to do the right thing. Chock-full of simple yet revelatory guidance, The Climate Diet empowers us to cast aside feelings of helplessness and start making positive changes for the good of our planet.
The Nutmeg's Curse
Author: Amitav Ghosh
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226823954
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
In this ambitious successor to The Great Derangement, acclaimed writer Amitav Ghosh finds the origins of our contemporary climate crisis in Western colonialism’s violent exploitation of human life and the natural environment. A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, Amitav Ghosh’s new book traces our contemporary planetary crisis back to the discovery of the New World and the sea route to the Indian Ocean. The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis, revealing the ways human history has always been entangled with earthly materials such as spices, tea, sugarcane, opium, and fossil fuels. Our crisis, he shows, is ultimately the result of a mechanistic view of the earth, where nature exists only as a resource for humans to use for our own ends, rather than a force of its own, full of agency and meaning. Writing against the backdrop of the global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, Ghosh frames these historical stories in a way that connects our shared colonial histories with the deep inequality we see around us today. By interweaving discussions on everything from the global history of the oil trade to the migrant crisis and the animist spirituality of Indigenous communities around the world, The Nutmeg’s Curse offers a sharp critique of Western society and speaks to the profoundly remarkable ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226823954
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
In this ambitious successor to The Great Derangement, acclaimed writer Amitav Ghosh finds the origins of our contemporary climate crisis in Western colonialism’s violent exploitation of human life and the natural environment. A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, Amitav Ghosh’s new book traces our contemporary planetary crisis back to the discovery of the New World and the sea route to the Indian Ocean. The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis, revealing the ways human history has always been entangled with earthly materials such as spices, tea, sugarcane, opium, and fossil fuels. Our crisis, he shows, is ultimately the result of a mechanistic view of the earth, where nature exists only as a resource for humans to use for our own ends, rather than a force of its own, full of agency and meaning. Writing against the backdrop of the global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, Ghosh frames these historical stories in a way that connects our shared colonial histories with the deep inequality we see around us today. By interweaving discussions on everything from the global history of the oil trade to the migrant crisis and the animist spirituality of Indigenous communities around the world, The Nutmeg’s Curse offers a sharp critique of Western society and speaks to the profoundly remarkable ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.
The Uninhabitable Earth
Author: David Wallace-Wells
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 052557672X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Economist • The Paris Review • Toronto Star • GQ • The Times Literary Supplement • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible—food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (The Guardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it—the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation—today’s. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD “The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”—Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times “Riveting. . . . Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”—The Economist “Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times “The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring.”—The Washington Post “The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 052557672X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Economist • The Paris Review • Toronto Star • GQ • The Times Literary Supplement • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible—food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (The Guardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it—the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation—today’s. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD “The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”—Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times “Riveting. . . . Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”—The Economist “Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times “The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring.”—The Washington Post “The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books
Green Earth
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 1101964839
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1090
Book Description
The landmark trilogy of cutting-edge science, international politics, and the real-life ramifications of climate change—updated and abridged into a single novel More than a decade ago, bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson began a groundbreaking series of near-future eco-thrillers—Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, and Sixty Days and Counting—that grew increasingly urgent and vital as global warming continued unchecked. Now, condensed into one volume and updated with the latest research, this sweeping trilogy gains new life as Green Earth, a chillingly realistic novel that plunges readers into great floods, a modern Ice Age, and the political fight for all our lives. The Arctic ice pack averaged thirty feet thick in midwinter when it was first measured in the 1950s. By the end of the century it was down to fifteen. One August the ice broke. The next year the breakup started in July. The third year it began in May. That was last year. It’s a muggy summer in Washington, D.C., as Senate environmental staffer Charlie Quibler and his scientist wife, Anna, work to call attention to the growing crisis of global warming. But as they fight to align the extraordinary march of modern technology with the awesome forces of nature, fate puts an unusual twist on their efforts—one that will pit science against politics in the heart of the coming storm. Praise for the Science in the Capital trilogy “Perhaps it’s no coincidence that one of our most visionary hard sci-fi writers is also a profoundly good nature writer—all the better to tell us what it is we have to lose.”—Los Angeles Times “An unforgettable demonstration of what can go wrong when an ecological balance is upset.”—The New York Times Book Review “Absorbing and convincing.”—Nature
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 1101964839
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1090
Book Description
The landmark trilogy of cutting-edge science, international politics, and the real-life ramifications of climate change—updated and abridged into a single novel More than a decade ago, bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson began a groundbreaking series of near-future eco-thrillers—Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, and Sixty Days and Counting—that grew increasingly urgent and vital as global warming continued unchecked. Now, condensed into one volume and updated with the latest research, this sweeping trilogy gains new life as Green Earth, a chillingly realistic novel that plunges readers into great floods, a modern Ice Age, and the political fight for all our lives. The Arctic ice pack averaged thirty feet thick in midwinter when it was first measured in the 1950s. By the end of the century it was down to fifteen. One August the ice broke. The next year the breakup started in July. The third year it began in May. That was last year. It’s a muggy summer in Washington, D.C., as Senate environmental staffer Charlie Quibler and his scientist wife, Anna, work to call attention to the growing crisis of global warming. But as they fight to align the extraordinary march of modern technology with the awesome forces of nature, fate puts an unusual twist on their efforts—one that will pit science against politics in the heart of the coming storm. Praise for the Science in the Capital trilogy “Perhaps it’s no coincidence that one of our most visionary hard sci-fi writers is also a profoundly good nature writer—all the better to tell us what it is we have to lose.”—Los Angeles Times “An unforgettable demonstration of what can go wrong when an ecological balance is upset.”—The New York Times Book Review “Absorbing and convincing.”—Nature
Earth Odyssey
Author: Mark Hertsgaard
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307484084
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
Like many of us, Mark Hertsgaard has long worried about the declining health of our environment. But in 1991, he decided to act on his concern and investigate the escalating crisis for himself. Traveling on his own dime, he embarked on an odyssey lasting most of the decade and spanning nineteen countries. Now, in Earth Odyssey, he reports on our environmental predicament through the eyes of the people who live it. From the gilded boardrooms of Paris to the traffic-clogged streets of Bangkok, we travel from the deep human past to our still unfolding future. Much of the story revolves around people like Zhenbing, Hertsgaard's charismatic interpreter in China, whose desire to escape poverty leaves him indifferent to his country's horrific air and water pollution. We also meet Garang, a proud Dinka tribesman whose response to Sudan's famine shows the difficulty of building an environmentally sustainable future without bridging the gap between rich and poor. Drawing on interviews with Václav Havel, Al Gore, Jacques Cousteau, and numerous other prominent figures, Hertsgaard offers fresh insight into such complex issues as humanity's growing addiction to the automobile, the insidious spread of nuclear technology, and the inevitable tension between unfettered capitalism and the health of the biosphere. Earth Odyssey is a vivid, passionate narrative about one man's journey around the world in search of the answer to the most important question of our time: Is the future of the human species at risk? Combining first-rate reportage with irresistible storytelling, Mark Hertsgaard has written an essential--and ultimately hopeful--book about the uncertain fate of humankind.
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307484084
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
Like many of us, Mark Hertsgaard has long worried about the declining health of our environment. But in 1991, he decided to act on his concern and investigate the escalating crisis for himself. Traveling on his own dime, he embarked on an odyssey lasting most of the decade and spanning nineteen countries. Now, in Earth Odyssey, he reports on our environmental predicament through the eyes of the people who live it. From the gilded boardrooms of Paris to the traffic-clogged streets of Bangkok, we travel from the deep human past to our still unfolding future. Much of the story revolves around people like Zhenbing, Hertsgaard's charismatic interpreter in China, whose desire to escape poverty leaves him indifferent to his country's horrific air and water pollution. We also meet Garang, a proud Dinka tribesman whose response to Sudan's famine shows the difficulty of building an environmentally sustainable future without bridging the gap between rich and poor. Drawing on interviews with Václav Havel, Al Gore, Jacques Cousteau, and numerous other prominent figures, Hertsgaard offers fresh insight into such complex issues as humanity's growing addiction to the automobile, the insidious spread of nuclear technology, and the inevitable tension between unfettered capitalism and the health of the biosphere. Earth Odyssey is a vivid, passionate narrative about one man's journey around the world in search of the answer to the most important question of our time: Is the future of the human species at risk? Combining first-rate reportage with irresistible storytelling, Mark Hertsgaard has written an essential--and ultimately hopeful--book about the uncertain fate of humankind.
Letter to Earth
Author: Elia Wise
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780717131112
Category : Life
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
This volume offers an explanation of the nature of the universe and our place as individuals in it. The author, Elia Wise, attempts to provide answers to some of life's more difficult questions: Is there a God? Why do people get diseases and suffer? The answers given take into account the role of consciousness in all human endeavours, from science to spirituality.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780717131112
Category : Life
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
This volume offers an explanation of the nature of the universe and our place as individuals in it. The author, Elia Wise, attempts to provide answers to some of life's more difficult questions: Is there a God? Why do people get diseases and suffer? The answers given take into account the role of consciousness in all human endeavours, from science to spirituality.
The Exhausted of the Earth
Author: Ajay Singh Chaudhary
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 1915672120
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
Climate change is not only about the exhaustion of the planet, it's about the exhaustion of so many of us, our lives, our worlds, even our minds. So, what is to be done? To answer this question, Ajay Singh Chaudhary brings together both the science and the politics of climate change. He shows how a new politics particular to the climate catastrophe demands a bitter struggle between those attached to the power, wealth, and security of "business-as-usual" and all of us, those exhausted, in every sense of the word, by the status quo. Replacing Promethean, romantic, and apocalyptic fairytales with a new story for every exhausted inhabitant of this exhausted world, The Exhausted of the Earth outlines the politics and the power needed to alter the course of our burning world far beyond, far better than, mere survival.
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 1915672120
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
Climate change is not only about the exhaustion of the planet, it's about the exhaustion of so many of us, our lives, our worlds, even our minds. So, what is to be done? To answer this question, Ajay Singh Chaudhary brings together both the science and the politics of climate change. He shows how a new politics particular to the climate catastrophe demands a bitter struggle between those attached to the power, wealth, and security of "business-as-usual" and all of us, those exhausted, in every sense of the word, by the status quo. Replacing Promethean, romantic, and apocalyptic fairytales with a new story for every exhausted inhabitant of this exhausted world, The Exhausted of the Earth outlines the politics and the power needed to alter the course of our burning world far beyond, far better than, mere survival.
This Place on Earth
Author: Alan Thein Durning
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : House & Home
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
Durning, the executive director of Northwest Environment Watch and commentator on National Public Radio, explores the environmental health of his home region and the ideas behind a sustainable way of life. From an innovative manager of public transportation in Boise, Idaho, to a Seattle shoe cobbler who is making a small stand against our disposable society, this book is filled with thought-provoking and inspiring people, ideals, and results. It shows how the intrinsic value of home can be acknowledged, valued, and preserved.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : House & Home
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
Durning, the executive director of Northwest Environment Watch and commentator on National Public Radio, explores the environmental health of his home region and the ideas behind a sustainable way of life. From an innovative manager of public transportation in Boise, Idaho, to a Seattle shoe cobbler who is making a small stand against our disposable society, this book is filled with thought-provoking and inspiring people, ideals, and results. It shows how the intrinsic value of home can be acknowledged, valued, and preserved.
Madhouse at the End of the Earth
Author: Julian Sancton
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1984824341
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “exquisitely researched and deeply engrossing” (The New York Times) true survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly awry—with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winter “The energy of the narrative never flags. . . . Sancton has produced a thriller.”—The Wall Street Journal In August 1897, the young Belgian commandant Adrien de Gerlache set sail for a three-year expedition aboard the good ship Belgica with dreams of glory. His destination was the uncharted end of the earth: the icy continent of Antarctica. But de Gerlache’s plans to be first to the magnetic South Pole would swiftly go awry. After a series of costly setbacks, the commandant faced two bad options: turn back in defeat and spare his men the devastating Antarctic winter, or recklessly chase fame by sailing deeper into the freezing waters. De Gerlache sailed on, and soon the Belgica was stuck fast in the icy hold of the Bellingshausen Sea. When the sun set on the magnificent polar landscape one last time, the ship’s occupants were condemned to months of endless night. In the darkness, plagued by a mysterious illness and besieged by monotony, they descended into madness. In Madhouse at the End of the Earth, Julian Sancton unfolds an epic story of adventure and horror for the ages. As the Belgica’s men teetered on the brink, de Gerlache relied increasingly on two young officers whose friendship had blossomed in captivity: the expedition’s lone American, Dr. Frederick Cook—half genius, half con man—whose later infamy would overshadow his brilliance on the Belgica; and the ship’s first mate, soon-to-be legendary Roald Amundsen, even in his youth the storybook picture of a sailor. Together, they would plan a last-ditch, nearly certain-to-fail escape from the ice—one that would either etch their names in history or doom them to a terrible fate at the ocean’s bottom. Drawing on the diaries and journals of the Belgica’s crew and with exclusive access to the ship’s logbook, Sancton brings novelistic flair to a story of human extremes, one so remarkable that even today NASA studies it for research on isolation for future missions to Mars. Equal parts maritime thriller and gothic horror, Madhouse at the End of the Earth is an unforgettable journey into the deep.
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1984824341
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “exquisitely researched and deeply engrossing” (The New York Times) true survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly awry—with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winter “The energy of the narrative never flags. . . . Sancton has produced a thriller.”—The Wall Street Journal In August 1897, the young Belgian commandant Adrien de Gerlache set sail for a three-year expedition aboard the good ship Belgica with dreams of glory. His destination was the uncharted end of the earth: the icy continent of Antarctica. But de Gerlache’s plans to be first to the magnetic South Pole would swiftly go awry. After a series of costly setbacks, the commandant faced two bad options: turn back in defeat and spare his men the devastating Antarctic winter, or recklessly chase fame by sailing deeper into the freezing waters. De Gerlache sailed on, and soon the Belgica was stuck fast in the icy hold of the Bellingshausen Sea. When the sun set on the magnificent polar landscape one last time, the ship’s occupants were condemned to months of endless night. In the darkness, plagued by a mysterious illness and besieged by monotony, they descended into madness. In Madhouse at the End of the Earth, Julian Sancton unfolds an epic story of adventure and horror for the ages. As the Belgica’s men teetered on the brink, de Gerlache relied increasingly on two young officers whose friendship had blossomed in captivity: the expedition’s lone American, Dr. Frederick Cook—half genius, half con man—whose later infamy would overshadow his brilliance on the Belgica; and the ship’s first mate, soon-to-be legendary Roald Amundsen, even in his youth the storybook picture of a sailor. Together, they would plan a last-ditch, nearly certain-to-fail escape from the ice—one that would either etch their names in history or doom them to a terrible fate at the ocean’s bottom. Drawing on the diaries and journals of the Belgica’s crew and with exclusive access to the ship’s logbook, Sancton brings novelistic flair to a story of human extremes, one so remarkable that even today NASA studies it for research on isolation for future missions to Mars. Equal parts maritime thriller and gothic horror, Madhouse at the End of the Earth is an unforgettable journey into the deep.