Antarctica, Day - B-

                                         We have biographies of cities, and more recently, rivers, so why not a continent?  This very well-written book is the story of mankind's varying attempts to discover, investigate and eventually occupy the vast southern continent.  Something was always believed to there, but the first to venture into its dangerous waters was Cook in the late eighteenth century.  He believed it was a frozen wasteland and not worth the effort to look into.  He was correct, but that did not stop the endless attempts to explore the continent. In the nineteenth century, Britain, France, Russia, America and Norway were the primary searchers.  In the waters north of Antarctica and on the many islands between Antarctica and South America, they found whales and seals and vigorously pursued commercial fishing opportunities.  The golden age of exploration took place at the beginning of the twentieth century. Sir Earnest Shackleton made the "furthest south" on behalf of Great Britain. Over the summer of 1911-12, Amundsen and Scott paired off in their fateful race to the Pole.  This tale is vividly depicted in a Masterpiece Theatre mini-series called 'The Last Place on Earth', which was based on 'Amundsen and Scott', a brilliant and enthralling book by Roland Huntford published in the UK in 1979, and reissued here under the same name as the tv show. I've also read Amundsen's memoirs of the adventure, as well as a number of other books. Unfortunately for me, there are 400+ pages in this book that cover the period after Scott dies.  Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the above countries, as well as the southern hemisphere entrants of Chile, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand all tried to claim sovereignty over the icy wastes.  The issue reached the height of absurdity when the USA and USSR took their cold war competition to the South Pole.  Matters have been more or less resolved since the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which froze territorial claims, provided for the sharing of scientific information, and demilitarized the continent.