Book Review: Shackleton's Forgotten Expedition, Beau Riffenburgh

[juushika]

Title: Shackleton's Forgotten Expedition: The Voyage of the Nimrod
Author: Beau Riffenburgh
Published: 2004
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 557,485
Text Number: 2096
Read Because: cold boys secondary sources; this is a belated review from summer last year and for the life of me I cannot remember how I got my hands on the book
Review:
Riffenburgh is a mediocre technical writer, which makes for clumsy sentence construction and scene transitions. And while I can't fault his research, his agenda is weirdly obvious—he's a complicated and critical Shackleton stan, which nevertheless makes him a Wilson and Scott hater. But, structurally, this is well-balanced: Shackleton's reputation as the failure of the British National Antarctic Expedition vs. the image fostered in the rest of his career hinges at the Nimrod, so there's a lot of the Discovery but a willingness to skim later and better-known details of the Endurance.

As for Shackleton. 1) He reminds me of Borchgrevink of the Southern Cross, chasing fame, uninterested in science, not very good at planning; Shackleton's rapport with (select of) his men and aptitude for leadership sets him apart, but it's clear that public response to the Southern Cross vs. the Nimrod was fueled purely by British chauvinism. 2) He's insufferable! 3) The excess of close calls in the return journeys from both geographic and magnetic pole attempts further cements my opinion that trying to identify the exact causes of Scott's failure in 1912 is a situation of forest and trees, the problem more fundamental than any specifics: as soon as you start a man-hauling across the Antarctic, you are one unlucky run from death.

It's a janky read, but I'm grateful this exists; there's a regretful dearth of secondary sources about the not-big-name Antarctic expeditions. And oh, how I wish more of the journals had ever been published!

Comments

[juushika]

Bless you for saying so. That feeling of "uh oh, unfortunately I know the answer to this rhetorical question" is exciting & awful in equal measure; but when I got into Antarctic explorers (? apparently a thing I'm into?) this was basically my first question: who gets the acclaim and why, because it didn't always map with my expectations. Scurvy (and attitudes towards, frameworks for) was super informative as an answer, so that paper in particular lives forever in my head.

It's been interesting to poke my head into Arctic vs Antarctic exploration because, sincerely, there's relief in relative distance from the human element re: Antarctic exploration; no one else lives there and the majority of the imperilment was a toxic little circlejerk. Not so in the Arctic! Upsetting!!

[starshipfox]

It's great to get an answer! I've read a lot of books about the Arctic that don't address the question at all, even though it's something I think about a lot.

It's true that Antarctic exploration is much less exploitative, because there was no local population to exploit. I'd be more drawn to books on the subject of Antarctic exploration.

Have you read "This Cold Heaven" by Gretel Ehrlich? It's one of my favourite books about the Arctic -- she does write about Arctic exploration, but more from an Inuit perspective.

[juushika]

This Cold Heaven is on my TBR because of you! Back from when you first reviewed it, [mumble] years ago. And is now buried under books related and distinctly not, but this is a great rec for it; as I expand my reading up north, I really need an Intuit perspective as a framework.

[starshipfox]

There aren't very many #OwnVoices Inuit perspectives, though the Greenlandic Internet has a surprising amount of posts. However, Ehrlich writes with a respect and interest in Inuit thought, both current and historical, and her references are also interesting to seek out.