Hell With A Capital H

Sep 22, 2024 11:27 PM

Author:Katherine Lambert

On 29 March 1912, as Scott and his two companions lay dying in their tent, elsewhere on the polar ice-cap six members of his ill-fated expedition were fighting for their lives. This was the so-called Northern Party, hand-picked by Scott to undertake his most significant programme of scientific research. The unsung hero of this group was Dr Murray Levick, whose attention to diet and mental and physical fitness played a major part in their survival. The doctor was a sensitive recorder and a talented photographer, it is on his previously unpublished diaries, monographs, photographs and sketches that this book is based. The six men were landed by Terra Nova in January 1911 at Cape Adare, 450 miles north of Scott's base camp at Cape Evans. They spent nearly a year there, living in a rudimentary hut, surveying and collecting specimens from the beautiful but inhospitable bay and shoreline fringed by inaccessible mountains. They were then dropped off mid-way between the two Capes to continue their work. The ship was due to pick them up on 17 February 1912. A month later she still hadn't come, and the men were forced to face the Antarctic winter in an igloo dug out of a snowdrift on 'Inexpressible Island'. After spending six-and-a-half months entombed in their underground ice-cave,in conditions of unimaginable physical and mental hardship,

Reviews

Hell with a Capital H is a wonderful book and the result of painstaking research. Katherine Lambert has produced a well-balanced analysis of Scott and of many of his expediiton team. The main focus of her gripping story centres on the horrendous tribulations of the isolated Northern Party. Better than any of the many Scott biographies I have read, this book brings out the real characters of the participants and the interplay between them as they dally in their icy and all but fatal Hell.

—— Ranulph Fiennes

Gould only enriches the texture of his writing with each successive phase-He would not be the great science writer that he is if he were not also a great humanist

—— Marek Kohn , New Statesman & Society

Gould's depth and humanity fit him for Montaigne's mantle more plausibly that anyone else currently writing... Lucid, exciting, accessible

—— John Carey , Sunday Times

It matters that one should understand the provenance of this important and disturbing book. It is not another futurological diatribe saying that the end is nigh, but a lucid, calm, profoundly well-informed work by a distinguished scientist, whose humanity - evidenced by a serious ethical commitment and a quiet sense of humour- balances the dispassionate logic with which he surveys his subject: the multitude of threats facing humanity in the twenty-first century from error and terror in the nuclear, biological and environmental spheres

—— Literary Review

Rees does the maths of risk beautifully, as well as explaining the vital importance of understanding the fragility and cosmic smallness of the human present... The odds are small, but the risks are staggering, and that is Rees's excellent point in this thought-provoking book

—— Sunday Times

Previous Article：Our Final Century Next Article：On the Shoulders of Giants

Comments

Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.