Product Description

In the mid-19th century the North Pole was a mystery. Some believed that it was an island of basalt in a warm crystal sea. Explorers who tried to penetrate the real icy wastes failed or died. But after Sir John Franklin disappeared with all his men in 1845, serious efforts began to be made to find the true Northernmost point of the globe. Fergus Fleming's book is a vivid, witty history of the disasters that ensued. The new explorers included Elisha Kane, a sickly man and useless commander, who led his team close to death in 1854, and Charles Hall, a printer from Ohio. Hall made the mistake of taking an experienced crew, who refused to commit suicide for him. Their mutiny so enraged Hall that he died of a stroke, and some of his crew escaped south on an ice-floe. They were followed by the Germans, newly united and eager for their place in the ice, the Austro-Hungarians and the British, who in 1876 managed to get further than any other expedition, travelling over terrain later explorers considered impassable. They left the field to the Norwegians, to expeditions organized by the American tabloid press, Swedish baloonists, aristocratic Italians and finally to the obsessive Robert Peary, who on one trip took his pregnant wife with him in order to set a record for the most northerly birth in history. He finally made it in 1909.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #137714 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The 19th-century equivalent of the race to land man on the Moon was the search for the Arctic pole, a story recounted in Fergus Fleming's Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole. The contest began with efforts to find Sir John Franklin, who had been lost searching for the Northwest passage, but soon became a hunt for the legendary "open polar sea" in which earnest Americans, methodical Brits, strong and silent Scandinavians and even a dashing Italian prince endured the ice for months (years in some cases) in the name of patriotism. In the end, as Fleming shows, there were no real winners, but merely disputes over whose navigational geometry was most authentic; the race became instead a competition for who could get there in the most original manner--be it with ironclad ships, balloons, skis, airships or motorbikes. Only in the last 40 years did it occur to the intrepid that two feet might be best. But unlike the with Antarctica, the real epic here was not the discovery of the North Pole, but outlasting the snows, floes and Eskimoes and returning with crew intact. This book isn't a patch on Francis Spufford's stylish and prizewinning I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination, but for bringing together the accounts of the best known of the Arctic adventurers, especially the Americans and the Swedes, Fleming is to be praised.--Miles Taylor

Review
'Barrow's Boys, Fergus Fleming's history of British exploration in the first half of the 19th century was an excellent book. Ninety Degrees North...is an even better one' Sunday Telegraph 'This is the sort of book you want to read in front of a blazing fire. It is immensely enjoyable' Daily Telegraph 'Fleming gives us a wonderful story, and tells it exceptionally well' Guardian 'Fleming's is among the best of the [ice] books.... All the great stories are here!' Robert Macfarlane, The Observer 'Travel history at its brilliant best. Best-selling author Fergus Fleming has produced a masterly tale of the race to reach the northern most point of the globe' Irish Independent 'A vividly frostbitten account. The reading, in a warm room, is great fun' The Independent

Daily Telegraph
‘This is the sort of book you want to read in front of a blazing fire. It is immensely enjoyable'

Customer Reviews

An excellent study of Arctic exploration
A word before I start. If you buy this you *must* buy Fleming's book "Barrows Boys" ; this is part 2 of 2, (even though you can't tell from the title)

This is an excellent book. It details Arctic history from 1848ish (Franklin search) through to Peary/Cook/Henson/no-ones discovery of the pole in 1908/9 (it does go on a little after that covering various flying expeditions).

Whereas Barrow's Boys (1818-1845) had a British focus, this book has a more American focus ; this is because of the explorers themselves, not Fleming himself.

Both books are basically sequential descriptions of each expedition - there is enough detail to get a good feel for each expedition (with the curious exceptions of Greely's expedition to Fort Conger and the Karluk expedition ?) in reasonable depth, and a bibliography for those who wish to read further.

The book deals with some detail wrt Cook and Peary, and concludes, basically, they both were not telling the truth about reaching 90 degrees, whilst praising their achievements.

It's slightly less humourous than Barrows Boys ; this is more than anything because the explorers had got a bit more competent by then and weren't going to the North Pole in swimsuits; and there are no digressions into African exploration.

This review probably sounds more critical than I feel ; the book is excellent, well researched and lively ; and both it and its companion volume are highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the Arctic, exploration, or just likes a jolly good read.

Fantastic follow up to "Barrow's Boys"
Having enjoyed Fergus Fleming's account of the British Admiralty's quest to find the North-West Passage that formed the central theme of his excellent "Barrow's Boys", I was not disappointed by this brilliant follow up that takes from it's starting point the attempt to find out what happened to Sir John Franklin's ill-fated expedition. Whilst the earlier book centred around a host of intrepid and wonderfully eccentric British explorers, this book demonstrates that the next generation of American and European explorers were no less interesting. "Ninety Degrees North" describes the attempts to find the North Pole between the middle of the Nineteenth century up until the 1920's.
This book includes a cast of characters such as Peary (whose achievements come under scrutiny) and Strindberg who sought to reach the North Pole by balloon. The expeditions demonstrate both extraordinary human endurance as well as stupidity and are well told in Fleming's witty and ironic prose.
New readers to the works of Fergus Fleming should seek out the earlier "Barrow's Boys" before acquiring this as it is very much a sequel to the other. I would unreservedly recommend both books as being some of the most exciting and fascinating history I have read in recent years.I will guarantee that you will be unable to put both books down. "The sword and the cross" is also worth checking out.

Nutters or Pioneers, read this and make your own mind up
The other reviews of this excellent book have laid its premise very well. A sequel of sorts to the superb "Barrows Boys" I too would recommend that you read that first as that way much of what is described in this book makes more sense. That's if you can make sense of men amputating their own toes or being so desperate for food that they are reduced to eating their own footwear or being reduced to cannibalism.
Fleming is a very engaging writer with a dry wit and he manages to convey the lunatic passion that drove these men into territory they had no real understanding of. It's also very informative without being too judgemental though he finds difficult to keep the tone of jaundiced disbelief out of his narrative at some of the shenanigans carried out in order to reach The North Pole. The attempt by the balloon The Eagle in particular is couched in terms of particular incredulity. Doubt is cast on some of the claims made by these explorers. Cook and Peary are both examined and found wanting.
This book unlike Barrows Boys centres more on attempts by the Americans and North European Countries because they were the nations primarily concerned in these adventures. It skirts over one resounding episode, namely that of The Karluck, but there is a book dedicated to that episode alone so in a way that's understandable.
Anyone with an interest in Polar exploration will love this. So will any one with a passion for adventure or the unquenchable desire of the human spirit to discover, to conquer and most importantly to survive. That's just about everyone then.