Land of Wondrous Cold: The Race to Discover Antarctica and Unlock the Secrets of Its Ice

Antarctica, the frozen desert hosting the South Pole, has long fascinated explorers due to its brutal climate and glacial shores. Land of Wondrous Cold tells the story of nineteenth-century voyages when British, French, and American commanders raced to penetrate Antarctica's glacial rim, laying the foundation for our current understanding of Terra Australis Incognita. Today, scientists race to uncover Earth's climate history and monitor the increasing instability of the Antarctic ice cap, which threatens coastal cities worldwide. The book interweaves the breakthrough research of the modern Ocean Drilling Program with the dramatic discovery tales of its Victorian forerunners, illuminating our profound connection to Antarctica in its past, present, and future incarnations.

Format: Hardback
Length: 312 pages
Publication date: 03 March 2020
Publisher: Princeton University Press

A gripping history of the polar continent, from the great discoveries of the nineteenth century to modern scientific breakthroughs

Antarctica, the ice kingdom hosting the South Pole, looms large in the human imagination. The secrets of this vast frozen desert have long tempted explorers, but its brutal climate and glacial shores notoriously resist human intrusion. Land of Wondrous Cold tells a gripping story of the pioneering nineteenth-century voyages, when British, French, and American commanders raced to penetrate Antarctica’s glacial rim for unknown lands beyond. These intrepid Victorian explorers—James Ross, Dumont D’Urville, and Charles Wilkes—laid the foundation for our current understanding of Terra Australis Incognita.

Today, the white continent poses new challenges, as scientists race to uncover Earth’s climate history, which is recorded in the south polar ice and ocean floor, and to monitor the increasing instability of the Antarctic ice cap, which threatens to inundate coastal cities worldwide. Interweaving the breakthrough research of the modern Ocean Drilling Program with the dramatic discovery tales of its Victorian forerunners, Gillen D’Arcy Wood describes Antarctica’s role in a planetary drama of plate tectonics, climate change, and species evolution stretching back more than thirty million years. An original, multifaceted portrait of the polar continent emerges, illuminating our profound connection to Antarctica in its past, present, and future incarnations.

A deep-time history of monumental scale, Land of Wondrous Cold brings the remotest of worlds within close reach—an Antarctica vital to both planetary history and human fortunes.

Weight: 570g
Dimension: 270 x 255 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780691172200