The Last Place on Earth by Roland Huntford

At the beginning of the
twentieth century, the South Pole was the most coveted prize in the fiercely
nationalistic modern age of exploration. In the brilliant dual biography, the
award-winning writer Roland Huntford re-examines every detail of the great race
to the South Pole between Britain’s Robert Scott and Norway’s Roald Amundsen.
Scott, who dies along with four of his men only eleven miles from his next
cache of supplies, became Britain’s beloved failure, while Amundsen, who not
only beat Scott to the Pole but returned alive, was largely forgotten. This
account of their race is a gripping, highly readable history that captures
the driving ambitions of the era and the complex, often deeply flawed men who
were charged with carrying them out.
THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH is the first of Huntford’s masterly trilogy of
polar biographies. It is also the only work on the subject in the English
language based on the original Norwegian sources, to which Huntford returned
to revise and update this edition.