Antarctic Destinies Scott, Shackleton, and the Changing Face of Heroism

A study of the Antarctic explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton. As well as their most heroic expeditions, the author looks in detail at just how and why their individual reputations have evolved over the course of the last century.

Stephanie Barczewski looks afresh at the two most famous expeditions of the heroic age of antarctic exploration, Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition of 1910-12 and Ernest Shackleton's Endurance expedition of 1914-16. For decades after his tragic death on the return journey from the South Pole, Scott was regarded as a saint-like figure with an unassailable reputation born from his heroic martyrdom in the frozen wastes of the Antarctic. Today, Scott and Shackleton occupy very different places in the polar pantheon of British heroes.