A Wretched and Precarious Situation: In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier

Welky, David

ISBN 10: 0393354822 / ISBN 13: 9780393354829

Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2017

May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0393354822I4N00

Synopsis:

"Unravels the strange story of one of the world's greatest discoveries that never was." National Geographic

In 1906, from atop a snow-swept hill in the ice fields northwest of Greenland, Commander Robert E. Peary spotted a heretofore unknown land looming in the distance. He called it "Crocker Land." Scientists and explorers agreed that Peary had found a new continent. Several years later, two of Peary's disciples, George Borup and Donald MacMillan-with the sponsorship of the American Museum of Natural History-assembled a team of amateurs to investigate. They pitched their two-year mission as a scientific tour de force that would fill in the last blank space on the globe. Instead, the Crocker Land Expedition became a five-year ordeal that endured Arctic blizzards, dwindling supplies, a fatal boating accident, a drunken sea captain, a shipwreck, marooned rescue parties, disease, dissension, and a crewman-turned-murderer. Based on a trove of unpublished letters, diaries, and field notes, A Wretched and Precarious Situation is a harrowing Arctic adventure unlike any other.

About the Author: David Welky is the author of The Thousand-Year Flood: The Ohio-Mississippi Disaster of 1937, The Moguls and the Dictators: Hollywood and the Coming of World War II, and other books. He is a professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas.

Bibliographic Details

Title: A Wretched and Precarious Situation: In ...
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication Date: 2017
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket