num_pages: 624
description: Since the first British American and Russian ships sighted the Antarctic coastline in 1820 the frozen continent has captured the world's imagination. David Day's biography of Antarctica describes in fascinating detail every aspect of this vast land's history: the exploration scientific investigation and geopolitics of the continent stretching over more than two centuries. Offering an international perspective Day discusses twentieth-century battles over territory including World War II disputes between the Allies and Nazi Germany and the multinational Cold War race to establish permanent bases on the ice. Day also provides insight into the remarkable men who have attempted to conquer the White Continent from the doomed Englishman Robert Scott to US Navy Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd who led five expeditions to Antarctica during the 1930s 1940s and 1950s. Ranging from the earliest attempts to prove the southern continent's existence through the so-called Heroic Age of exploration to the frenzy of attempted territorial claims that ended in 1959 with the Antarctic Treaty-banning militarization and declaring the continent open for science this masterful history is unsurpassed in its wide-ranging scope and depth of detail.
language: English
title: Antarctica: A Biography
publisher: Knopf