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The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage
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Author
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Anthony Brandt.
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Publisher
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Knopf
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Format
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hardcover
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Product Dimensions
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9.5
x
6.5
x
1.4
inches
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ISBN
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9780307263926
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Pages/Publication Date
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441/2010
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Daedalus Item Code
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21661
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List Price:
$28.95
Sale Price:
$5.98
You Save:
$22.97
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Description
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After the triumphant end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the British took it upon themselves to complete something they had been trying to do since the 16th century: find the fabled Northwest Passage, a shortcut to the Orient by sea over northern Canada. Anthony Brandt evokes this quest from its beginnings in the age of exploration through its development into a British national obsession, and its final descent into scurvy, starvation, and cannibalism. Sir John Franklin's disastrous 1845 expedition is the focus of the book, but Brandt portrays all of the major expeditions and a number of fascinating characters—including Franklin's extraordinary wife Lady Jane—in vivid detail. "Brandt is a superb and profound writer who leads us through a tale of such hardship you feel as if you've been aboard ship with them. It's no small feat to use a bit of history to illuminate the future, but Brandt pulls it off. This is narrative history at its absolute gripping best."—Sebastian Junger "Whether it is Gordon of Khartoum or Scott of the Antarctic, British imperial history is replete with heroic failures, deemed 'martyrs for the Empire.' Brandt, the editor of the National Geographic Adventure Classics series, illustrates that the search for the fabled Northwest Passage provides a good share of such men.... This is a superior tale of nobility, hubris, and sadly, futility."—Booklist
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