Pole to Pole

Palin, Michael; Pao, Basil

ISBN 10: 0563370653 / ISBN 13: 9780563370659

Published by BBC Books, 1995

About this Item

Mint condition.BBC Books,1995.First Paperback edition-first printing,1995.Large format paperback(two small nicks on the edges of the cover) in mint condition.Illustrated with many colour,b/w photos,drawings,maps.The book is new with a small nick on the edge of the pages.320pp including Afterword.

Seller Inventory # 1876

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Pole to Pole
• Publisher: BBC Books
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0563370653
• ISBN 13: 9780563370659
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: First Paperback edition-first printing.
• Condition: New
• Seller catalogs:
  • Travel & Exploration

About this title

Synopsis

Following "Around the World in 80 Days", this book accompanies Michael Palin's second travel series on BBC Television. It is a record of his continuous land and sea journey from the North Pole to the South Pole, following a given line of longitude - 30 degrees East. Air travel is allowed only as a last resort. The line of travel follows as closely as possible existing roads, rivers, railways and shipping routes, and for the most part the means of transport is provided by trains, trucks, ships, rafts, sledges, skidoos, buses, barges, bicycles and balloons. The difficulty, and the enjoyment, lie in accepting and overcoming the limitations which man and nature impose on an abstract line around the globe. The route is remarkably rich and varied. It embraces, amongst others, the CIS, Turkey, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. It starts and ends at the frozen poles and crosses the Equator, passing through such cities as St Petersburg, Istanbul, Luxor and Johannesburg. Palin and his crew witnessed history in the making during their journey, such as the end of communism in the USSR and the end of apartheid in South Africa.

Review

Having circumnavigated the globe from west to east in Around the World in 80 Days, Michael Palin proceeded to stretch even his endurance with his next journey, travelling due south from the North Pole, arriving five months later at the southernmost point of the globe, the South Pole. The result is Pole to Pole, Palin's account of his extraordinary journey between July and December 1991, passing through 17 countries from Greenland and the former Soviet Union in the north to Kenya, South Africa and Chile in the south.

From the frozen wastes of both poles, to the scorching heat of Africa, Pole to Pole is a travelogue of bizarre extremes. Palin revels in the surrealism of it all as he travels through a range of vastly different European and African communities undergoing massive social and political upheavals in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Palin's shrewd observations are as ever interspersed with his eye for the weird and the comical, as he meets Santa Claus and Lenin, goes shopping for camels in Omdurman, and makes a final hectic dash to the South Pole via Chile. It's all quite exhausting! --Jerry Brotton