Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #112245 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 500 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
There's something about the overwhelming emptiness and terrifying beauty of the polar regions that never fails to attract. They are the most powerful symbols we have left of a world where human-made laws and values count for nothing; no one conquers the frozen wastelands-- they merely learn to live by the rules nature dictates. It is easy to see how for a long time the lives of the polar explorers were shrouded in quasi-mystical and heroic terms. This all changed in the 1970s with the publication of Roland Huntford's magnificent biography, Scott and Amundsen, in which he systematically and methodically revealed the levels of incompetence and arrogance with which Scott's expedition was riddled.

In Barrow's Boys Fergus Fleming takes us on an incisive and witty journey through the landmark years of British exploration from 1816-1850, marvelling at both the bravery and the stupidity involved. Fleming is a historian first and foremost, so he begins by placing exploration in its context. It wasn't some high-minded idealism or wacky sense of adventure, as is often suggested, that placed Britain at the forefront of discovery, but economics and self-interest. At the end of the Napoleonic wars, the British Navy was too large for its peacetime needs. Officers were laid off and advancement was slow, so the Navy needed to find itself a role. Charting the unmapped areas of the world seemed as good an idea as any.

Step forward John Barrow. Barrow was only the Second Secretary at the Admiralty--not normally a position of great influence--yet he was a skilled politician, and he managed to carve out a niche for himself by organising expedition after expedition. He started inauspiciously by sending Captain James Tuckey off on an ill-fated jaunt up the Congo in search of Timbucktoo, which was then imagined as some African El Dorado, and he ended in failure with the loss of Franklin's expedition to find the North West Passage. In between he courted triumph and tragedy; Ross discovered Antarctica, Parry opened up the Arctic with his attempt on the Pole, and Captain Bremer failed to establish northern Australia as the new Singapore.

Fleming has a great feel for the telling detail. He doesn't get lost in endless minutiae that distract from the narrative, but he never fails to remind us of the surrealism of British 19th-century exploration--cocked hats and reindeer-drawn sledges in the Arctic, frock coats in the Sahara. When put like this, it makes it all too easy to see how Scott could have been allowed to have botch his journey to the South Pole quite so catastrophically. --John Crace

Good Book Guide
‘A remarkable story, engagingly and knowledgeably told’

Synopsis
The atlas of 1816 was littered with blanks. What was the North Pole? Was there a Northwest passage? What lay at the heart of Africa? Did Antarctica exist? In his quest to find the answers to these questions John Barrow, Second Secretary to the Admiralty, launched the most ambitious programme of exploration the world had ever seen. Between 1816 and 1845 his hand-picked teams of elite naval officers scoured the globe's empty spaces. Often at odds with each other and working in utterly surreal conditions - cocked hats in the Arctic, frock coats in the Sahara - they entered the void. Their ignorance of the conditions they would encounter, allied to Barrow's insouciant way with maps, make this a tale of absurdly dangerous comedy as well as harrowing personal endeavour.

Customer Reviews

Interesting and witty
For me this is one of the most enjoyable history books I have ever read. It was the exploits of the explorers that I found riveting, inspiring and in some cases, quite amusing. I thought it was fast paced and not in the slightest bit dry. Maybe there are better books on the subject, there always will be, but this was a good enough read for me.

An exciting story competently told
I cannot agree with the extravagent praise which this book has received: I think this was because for many readers the main events recounted were new. Fleming never manages to successfully link the narrative across the diverse explorations encouraged by Barrow. Therefore the book oscillates in an unsatisfactory way between the Arctic and the Sahara.

In addition there are two outstanding books which cover the same ground for the Arctic: Pierre Berton's "Artic Grail: The Quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909", and Barry Lopez' "Arctic Dreams". Both are more talented writers than Fleming. Berton is unjustly neglected as he is one of the best narrative historians. Anyone who enjoys "Barrow's Boys", should find both of these rewarding.

Brilliant
Fleming weaves a compelling yarn of the numerous explorers who set off on daring and intrepid missions to fill in the gaps that were missing from the global map of the mid 19th Century. Populated with such individuals as John Ross,his son James and Richard Lander,this book offers a fascinating insight into a previously neglected period of exploration . Central to the story is Sir John Franklin whose first expeditions defies belief and whose last, became one of the great mysteries of the age. (A mystery that still remains unsolved today and was able to grab a few column inches in the broadsheets over the summer.) The story of the explorers and their search for the North West Passage and Timbuctoo would be fascinating as it is, but Fleming's witty narrative is the perfect instrument with which to describe these British eccentrics. It is almost a black comedy. The horrors and struggles endured grip the reader and I found myself racing to the end of each chapter to see if the explorer survived his ordeal.
Fleming has also written a sequel to this book called "Ninety Degrees North" that describes the exploration of the Northern Polar regions during the next 50 years after "Barrow's Boys" conclusion and this proves that , if anything, our European and American explorers were equally barmy.
I would unreservedly recommend both of these books for the story of the sheer stamina and endurance of the explorers and for the ironic manner with which Mr. Fleming elaborates on the subject. Top notch entertainment !