A01=Fergus Fleming
Author_Fergus Fleming
Category=DNBP
Category=NHB
Category=RGR
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Product details
- ISBN 9781862075023
- Weight: 400g
- Dimensions: 131 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 22 Aug 2001
- Publisher: Granta Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
Fergus Fleming was born in 1959 and studied at Oxford University and City University, London. He trained as an accountant and barrister and has worked as a furniture maker.
