The Man Who Ate His Boots
The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · Print & ebook · March 22, 2011
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 sixteenth century: find the fabled Northwest Passage.
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- Who it’s for
- A spare, dark history of Arctic ambition and the people it wore down.
- Genres
- Polar Regions History, Exploration & Discovery, Adventurers & Explorers
- Published
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, March 22, 2011
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Start with this bookAbout this book
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 sixteenth century: find the fabled Northwest Passage.
Continue reading
For the next thirty-five years the British Admiralty sent out expedition after expedition to probe the ice-bound waters of the Canadian Arctic in search of a route, and then, after 1845, to find Sir John Franklin, the Royal Navy hero who led the last of these Admiralty expeditions. Enthralling and often harrowing, The Man Who Ate His Boots captures the glory and the folly of this ultimately tragic enterprise.
Arctic Pressure
A spare, dark history of Arctic ambition and the people it wore down.
Come here for
- maritime history with a grimly specific edge
- cultural context around the Northwest Passage
Expect
- 19th-century exploration under pressure
- tragic momentum, not easy heroics
Where it sits
| Exploration & Discovery | 55% |
|---|---|
| Polar Regions History | 51% |
| Adventurers & Explorers | 46% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- British History
- Polar Regions History
- Exploration & Discovery
- Authors
- Simon Vance, Anthony Brandt, Random House Audio
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Published
- March 22, 2011
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- British History