A01=Buddy Levy
airship aviation
airship explorers
airships
arctic exploration history
armchair adventure
Author_Buddy Levy
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Category=DNXH
Dr. Frederick Cook
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
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eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
extreme conditions
famous explorers
farthest north
Frederick Cook
Italian airship
navigation
Norge
north pole
polar explorers biography
rescue stories
Roald Amundsen
Robert Peary
scientific voyages
survival stories
travel
Umberto Nobile
walter wellman
Product details
- ISBN 9781250289186
- Weight: 616g
- Dimensions: 167 x 242mm
- Publication Date: 17 Mar 2025
- Publisher: St Martin's Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Arctic explorer and American visionary Walter Wellman pioneered both polar and trans-Atlantic airship aviation, making history’s first attempts at each. Wellman has been cast as a self-promoting egomaniac known mostly for his failures. Instead he was a courageous innovator who pushed the boundaries of polar exploration and paved the way for the ultimate conquest of the North Pole by airship.
American explorer Dr. Frederick Cook was the first to claim he made it to the North Pole in 1908. A year later, so did American Robert Peary, but both Cook’s and Peary’s claims had been seriously questioned. There was enough doubt that Norwegian explorer extraordinaire Roald Amundsen picked up where Walter Wellman left off, attempting to fly to the North Pole by airship. He would go in the Norge, designed by Italian aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile. The 350-foot Norge flew over the North Pole on May 12, 1926.
However, the engineer Nobile felt slighted by Amundsen. Two years later, Nobile returned, this time in the Italia, backed by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. Nobile intended to win back the global accolades and reputation he believed Amundsen had stripped from him. The journey ended in disaster, launching one of the greatest rescue operations the world had ever seen.
Realm of Ice and Sky is the riveting tale of the men who first flew the most advanced technological airships of their time to the top of the world, risking and even giving their lives for science, country, and polar immortality.
BUDDY LEVY is the author of ten books, including Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition and Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disasterous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk, as well as Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs and River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana's Voyage of Death and Discovery Down the Amazon. He is co-author of No Barriers: A Blind Man's Journey to Kayak the Grand Canyon and GERONIMO: Leadership Strategies of An American Warrior. His books have been published in eight languages and won numerous awards. He lives in Idaho.
