My Life as an Explorer

Amundsen, Roald. Garden City: Doubleday, 1927.
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Roald Amundsen (1872-1928), Norwegian Explorer. It is appropriate for Amundsen to take pride of place in this compilation since he can easily lay claim to being the world’s most successful Polar explorer. His experience was broad and his successful explorations included priority conquests of the South Pole, the North Pole by air, the Northwest Passage, and a third transit of the Northeast Passage. Pride of place goes to his Norwegian team’s “discovery” of the South Pole on December 14, 1911, thereby winning the so-called “race to the Pole” over Robert Falcon Scott and his British companions.

Come North with Me: An Autobiography.

Balchen, Bernt. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1958.
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Balchen, Bernt, 1899-1979—Norwegian/American Explorer and Pilot. From a very early age Balchen was fascinated by the allure of the Polar regions and the prospect of using aviation to explore them. From 1925 until well after World War II he was involved in many of the most dramatic and often dangerous exploits of many of the Polar explorers and he knew most of them: Amundsen, Nobile, Ellsworth, Byrd, etc. and he is widely believed to be the first person to fly over both Poles, with Amundsen in the North and Byrd in the South. He held dual citizenship of both Norway and the United States, and served in the US Army Air Force in secret operations supporting the Norwegian resistance during the World War II.

Before the Heroes Came: Antarctica in the 1890s.

Baughman, T. H. Lincoln, NE: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1994.
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A solid but rather dry account of exploration in Antarctica during the decade before Robert Falcon Scott’s first expedition aboard the Discovery, and centered on Carsten Borchgrevink, his first landing on the Antarctic Continent, and his 1898-1900 Southern Cross expedition. In his concluding chapter, “Lessons not Learned,” Baughman explicitly accuses Clements Markham and Scott of failing to learn the lessons from the previous decade, thus leading to their “heroic” failure. In particular Markham insisted on naval leadership by the wrong people, avoiding scientific expertise, bypassing William Speirs Bruce for Scott, etc.

Americans in Antarctica, 1715-1948

Bertrand, Kenneth J. . New York: American Geographical Society, 1971. (AGS Special Publication No. 39.).
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A thorough account of American operations in Antarctica, from the Falklands in the 1770s to the 1947-48 US Navy “Operation Windmill.” See individual chapters for each expedition covered.

Roald Amundsen.

Bomann-Larsen, Tor. Foreword by Pen Hadow. Translated by Ingrid Christophersen. Stroud, Glocs., UK: Sutton Publishing, 2006.
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Bomann attempts to do to Amundsen what Huntford did to Scott. Most of the time he refers to Amundsen as “the polar explorer” as if he thought himself the only one. Apart from a reference to Amundsen’s childhood reading of and fascination with Sir John Franklin, I found nothing about Amundsen’s reading.

The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen

Bown, Stephen R. . Boston: Da Capo Press, 2012.
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Poorly documented, totally derivative (mainly from NY Times), this book is riddled with errors, but generally an engaging and respectful biography. Repeats story of Amundsen’s teenage reading of everything he could find on polar exploration, but adds something about a voyage from Spain to Florida. He is careful to emphasize Amundsen’s careful reading of fellow explorers and his use of that information to give himself an extra edge. For that Amundsen probably gets insufficient credit.

Here Are the Books Ernest Shackleton Brought on His Final Antarctic Expedition

Debosak, Michelle. found on the Internet 4/15/16 at http://mentalfloss.com/article/76170/here-are-books-ernest-shackleton-brought-his-final-antarctic-expedition.
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Sir Ernest Shackleton's final polar expedition was also his most ambitious. In 1915, he and his crew set off aboard the Endurance with the goal of becoming the first men to cross the Antarctic continent. Though ultimately unsuccessful, their mission lasted 21 months from departure to return. Luckily, Shackleton had plenty of books on board to pass the time, the BBC reports.

What books were taken to the Antarctic 100 years ago?

Kerley, Paul. BBC News Magazine 2/24/16 Found on the Internet at https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35633374.
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The BBC News Magazine of 24 February 2016 has an article by Paul Kerley which lists the books found in a photograph of the book shelves in Shackleton’s cabin aboard Endurance. The titles were deciphered from a digitized image of the shelves in Shackleton’s cabin. The list consists primarily of mostly undistinguished light fiction, about a dozen reference works, and a smattering of books of Arctic (not Antarctic) exploration

Autobiographical manuscript

Ellsworth, Lincoln. in the AMNH [RB Collection].
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J-3] Typescript, with corrections in pencil by G.H.G. Pre-1935.

A Voyage to Terra Australis, Undertaken for the Purpose of Completing the Discovery of that Vast Country….

Flinders, Matthew. Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia, 1966. [Facsimile of 1814 edition, Two vols. & atlas volume of individual charts.].
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Vol. I, p. 6: Among the books on this voyage were the “books of voyages to the South Seas, which, with our own individual collections, and the Encyclopedia Britannica, presented by the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, formed a library in my cabin for the use of all the officers.” Every Admiralty chart for Australia was copied for them.

A History of Antarctic Science.

Fogg, G. E. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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A humanistic study of the development of Antarctic science (not much different from science elsewhere apart from the extreme conditions); as such it constitutes a quite comprehensive history of most Antarctic exploration as well. Antarctic science grows out of mainstream science but has a different relation to politics. Contrasts the “heroic” explorers with the scientists for whom deprivation was no virtue. Fogg defines Antarctic as within the Antarctic Convergence (aka Polar Front), below 50 degrees south, not the 60 degrees of the Antarctic Treaty.

Of Ice and Men: The Story of the British Antarctic Survey, 1943-73.

Fuchs, Vivian. London: Anthony Nelson, 1982.
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A comprehensive history of the first 30 years of BAS, originally known as FIDS (Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey), at first a naval exercise under the Admiralty. In effect it has been one very prolonged British expedition to West Antarctica, with emphasis on the Antarctic Peninsula and its islands.

Mathew Fontaine Maury, Father of Oceanography: A Biography, 1806-1873.

Grady, John.
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Summary [from ABEBooks]: In becoming "a useful man" on the maritime stage, Matthew Fontaine Maury focused light on the ills of a clique-ridden Navy, charted sea lanes and bested Great Britain's admiralty in securing the fastest, safest routes to India and Australia. He helped bind the Old and New worlds with the laying of the transatlantic cable, forcefully advocated Southern rights in a troubled union, and preached Manifest Destiny from the Arctic to Cape Horn. Late in life, he revolutionized warfare in perfecting electronically detonated mines. Maury's eagerness to go to the public in person and in print on the questions of the day riled powerful men in business and politics, and the U.S., Confederate and Royal navies. They dismissed him as the "Man on the Hill." Over his career, Maury more than once ran afoul of Jefferson Davis, and Stephen R. Mallory, secretary of the Confederate States Navy. He argued against eminent members of the nation's emerging scientific community in a decades-long debate over science for its own sake versus science for the people's sake. Through the political, social and scientific struggles of his time, however, Maury had his share of powerful allies, like President John Tyler; but by the early 1870s they, too, were in eclipse or in the grave.

The Race to the White Continent.

Gurney, Alan. New York: Norton, 2000.
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Describes and compares three major Antarctic expeditions of the late 1830s, one French (d’Urville), one British (Ross), and one American (Wilkes).