Product Description

In 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men set sail for the South Atlantic on board a ship called the Endurance. The object of the expedition was to cross the Antarctic overland. In October 1915, still half a continent away from their intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in ice. For five months Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs, were castaways on one of the most savage regions of the world. This utterly gripping book, based on firsthand accounts of crew members and interviews with survivors, describes how the men survived, how they lived together in camps on the ice for 17 months until they reached land, how they were attacked by sea leopards, had to kill their beloved dogs whom they could no longer feed, the diseases which they developed (an operation to amputate the foot of one member of the crew was carried out on the ice), and the extraordinary indefatigability of the men and their lasting civility towards one another in the most adverse conditions conceivable. This is a harrowing adventure and an extremely compelling book - destined to be a bestseller.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #707545 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
When Alfred Lansing's Endurance was first published in 1959, few people in this country--or anywhere else for that matter--had heard of Shackleton or the Imperial Transantarctic Expedition of 1914. Britain's polar history had been rewritten with Shackleton airbrushed out and Captain Scott taking centre stage as the archetypal English hero who died on the Great Barrier on his long haul back from the South Pole.

If Scott's deification was almost instantaneous, Shackleton's descent into obscurity was more of a slow fade than a sudden death. He achieved a certain amount of acclaim when South, his own account of the Expedition, was published, but his legend seemed to die with him when he suffered a fatal heart attack on another trip south in 1922. His memory deserved much better. Not only was he a far better explorer than Scott, both in terms of his technical and man management capabilities, but the story of the Transantarctic expedition read like an epic out of a Boys Own annual. With his boat crushed, he led his men across the pack-ice, sailed them in open boats to Elephant Island. Once he realised there was no chance of rescue, he and four crew mates sailed a further 600 miles across the southern ocean to South Georgia where they were shipwrecked. The five men then made the first crossing of the island to reach the whaling station at Stromness. Three attempts and three and a half months later, Shackleton returned to Elephant Island to pick up the remaining men. Not a single member of either party was lost.

So we have Lansing to largely thank for Shackleton's rehabilitation. But herein lies the problem. Shackleton's story has been now been so well told both in books--especially Roland Huntford's definitive biography, and in film and TV, that even though Lansing's thrilling account, making liberal use of the diaries of several expedition members, was the first to be published it now feels all terribly familiar and adds nothing to what we already know. Even Frank Hurley's exquisite photographs which illustrate the book now engender a slight feeling of déjà vu--not least because they have already been better reproduced in a single volume published by Bloomsbury. But Lansing deserves his day in the snow and no polar library would be complete without this book. And if, by any chance, you've never previously read a word about Shackleton, this is as good a place as any to start. --John Crace

Amazon.co.uk Review
You can't really fail with a book about the Endurance. Although Ernest Shackleton's attempt to make the first Trans-Antarctic crossing barely made it out of base camp, his expedition has gone into the history books as one of the great epics of polar travel. Endurance left England in August 1914 and reached the pack-ice off Antarctica in January the following year. It sank in November, crushed by the weight of the ice, leaving Shackleton and his 27 men stranded in one of the most desolate areas of the world with no hope of rescue. Undaunted, Shackleton led his team to the edge of the ice, dragging three open life-boats that had been salvaged from the Endurance every step of the way. They then sailed to Elephant Island, a remote uninhabited outcrop of rock, where they lived off penguins and seagull. By April 1916, Shackleton realised there was no chance of them being spotted by a passing ship and he and five men set sail in the open-decked 20-foot boat, the James Caird, across 650 miles of the stormiest seas of the southern oceans for South Georgia. After narrowly surviving being shipwrecked on the reefs surrounding the western coast of South Georgia, Shackleton then proceeded to make the first-ever crossing of the mountainous island before reaching the sanctuary of the whaling station at Stromness. And it was Shackleton, in person, who led the rescue mission to Elephant Island to pick up the rest of his men. Miraculously, all 28 men survived.

Alfred Lansing's book, first published in 1957, tells it as it was. He draws heavily on the diaries and other first-person memoirs of those involved, and he writes with both style and pace. As such it is the classic tale of derring-do. What Lansing misses, though, is the social context. He provides little sense of history; in August 1914, when the Endurance left England, World War One was starting. By the time he returned home two years later, thousands of young men of his generation were lying dead on the battlefields of the Somme. The contrast is almost unbearable but Lansing makes nothing of it. Similarly he does not explain how someone like Scott, whose South Pole expedition several years earlier had been an unmitigated disaster of incompetence and bad planning, should go down in British history as one of our all-time heroes, while Shackleton, whose exploits were indeed truly heroic, has lived for so long in Scott's shadow. --John Crace

Review
This is the true story of Shackleton's amazing voyage in 1914 to cross the Antarctic overland. His ship, the Endurance, was beset by ice in early 1915 and then crushed ten months later. Shackleton and his men were 1200 miles away from the nearest outpost of humanity. The fact that the crew managed to survive, once Shackleton and five others made a perilous 800-mile journey to get help, is the stuff of legend. Lansing includes the perspectives of other crew members drawn from diaries, private papers and personal interviews. It is a fantastic story, brilliantly told. (Kirkus UK)

The demand for good true adventure is insatiable- and here is a good candidate. Based on diaries and interviews, this is an absorbing account of Ernest Shackleton's third expedition to Antarctica. Shackleton had tried and failed twice before, in 1901 and 1907, to reach the South Pole. His third attempt involved sailing the Endurance as far into Antarctica as possible, then finishing the expedition on foot. But almost from the beginning the expedition was beset by difficulties. The ship had to be abandoned because of the ice-crush and the party had to camp on a drifting ice floe, their only goal now being rescue. They had to kill their own dogs for food but they did manage, eventually, to hunt seals, sea leopards and penguins. Their greatest danger was always the weather. They were finally forced back to the Endurance when their ice floe began to break up. After they reached the island of South Georgia, they formed two groups, one to maintain a camp, the other to look for help. The expedition which began in 1914 took 17 months and Shackleton's goal was only achieved last year by Vivian Fuchs, whose book The Crossing of Antarctica (see p. 892) should spark some additional interest in this one. Here too is adventure handled with professional deftness. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

"Endurance" from a 14 year old
It seemed right that you should get a younger persons point of view on the book. So here it is.
Every second of this book was breath-taking and the remarkable characters never stopped amazing me with their never ceasing courage and determination to get home. Set during the first World War the crew of the Endurance are forgotton as their ship sinks leaving them stranded on the vast Antarctic ice. For two years the men crossed the ice, living on seals, penguins and dogs. Through vivid diary extracts and accounts you see the adventure through the eyes of the men who struggled through it; you realise how each mans different personalities and qualities succeeded in get the others around him home. The descriptions of the ice and atmosphere of the surrounding countries are amazing and the pictures are breath-taking.
As you read the book you realise Alfred Lansing excellent skill as a writer of accurate events and never loose interest in the risks taken by the crew of the Endurance as they cross ice, the wilest sea in the world and a mountain climbed never before, driven by pure determination and strength of mind.
This book is amazing. Alfred Lansing had true talent.

If I didn't know it was true...
This account of Shackleton's famous expedition reads like a thriller novel. It may lack some technical detail that a student of Antarctica might desire, but it gives full vent to the predicament the party found themselves in, and the inspirational fortitude and courage of their leader. One advantage of this book is that the author had access to surviving expedition members when researching the subject, and the book benefits from these first hand accounts of the persoanlities involved as well as the bleak details of their situation.

As the story unfolds, each step required to get nearer rescue becomes more 'impossible'. Threat of starvation, wintering on ice, breaking ice floes, an incredible boat journey, amputation, crossing impenetrable mountains (the first to do so)---it is all in here. Each phase is a powerful story in itself. It is one of the great stories of the 20th century---up there with the Apollo 13 crew---but these men had no-one except themselves and their determination to get themselves home safely. If you know little or nothing about Shackleton's adventure this is, I think, the best book to introduce the subject. It is the pinnacle of the 'heroic age' adventures, and Alfred Lansing captures the mood beautifully.

the ultimate survival story
If this weren't a true story you would consider it too far fetched. The determination to survive in the face of extreme hardship is mindblowing. Shackleton's leadership skills are unparalleled and could be applied to many other areas of life. One of the best books I have ever read - thoroughly recommended.