Barrow's Boys by Fergus Fleming5/12/2023 ![]() ![]() Charting the unmapped areas of the world seemed as good an idea as any. Officers were laid off and advancement was slow, so the Navy needed to find itself a role. ![]() At the end of the Napoleonic wars, the British Navy was too large for its peacetime needs. It wasn't some high-minded idealism or wacky sense of adventure, as is often suggested, that placed Britain at the forefront of discovery, but economics and self-interest. Fleming is a historian first and foremost, so he begins by placing exploration in its context. In Barrow's Boys Fergus Fleming takes us on an incisive and witty journey through the landmark years of British exploration from 1816 to 1850, marveling at both the bravery and the stupidity involved. This all changed in the 1970s with the publication of Roland Huntford's magnificent biography of Scott and Amundsen, now called The Last Place on Earth, in which he systematically and methodically revealed the levels of incompetence and arrogance with which Scott's expedition was riddled. It is easy to see how for a long time the lives of the polar explorers were shrouded in quasi-mystical and heroic terms. They are the most powerful symbols we have left of a world where human-made laws and values count for nothing no one conquers the frozen wastelands-they merely learn to live by the rules nature dictates. There's something about the overwhelming emptiness and terrifying beauty of the polar regions that never fails to attract. ![]()
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