Book ID: CBB476131424

Land of Wondrous Cold: The Race to Discover Antarctica and Unlock the Secrets of Its Ice (2020)

unapi

Wood, Gillen D'Arcy (Author)


Princeton University Press


Publication Date: 2020
Physical Details: 312
Language: English

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

...More
Reviewed By

Review Vanessa Heggie (2021) Review of "Land of Wondrous Cold: The Race to Discover Antarctica and Unlock the Secrets of Its Ice". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 194-195). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB476131424/

Similar Citations

Book Day, David; (2013)
Antarctica: A Biography (/isis/citation/CBB001421625/)

Book Blanchard, Pascal; (2008)
Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Colonial Empires (/isis/citation/CBB001033417/)

Article Depew, David J.; (2010)
Darwinian Controversies: An Historiographical Recounting (/isis/citation/CBB001032812/)

Book Lewis, Cherry; Knell, Simon J.; (2009)
The Making of the Geological Society of London (/isis/citation/CBB001031472/)

Article Marco Mazzeo; (2013)
Gli errori di Darwin? Evoluzione e storia naturale (/isis/citation/CBB744523130/)

Book Rip Bulkeley; (2021)
The Historiography of the First Russian Antarctic Expedition, 1819–21 (/isis/citation/CBB415822678/)

Article David J. Galloway; (2008)
Austral Lichenology: 1690–2008 (/isis/citation/CBB541732590/)

Article Tim J. Horder; (2008)
A History of Evo-Devo in Britain: Theoretical ideals confront biological complexity (/isis/citation/CBB341265988/)

Article Philip Stone; (2020)
Robert McCormick and the circumstances of his Arctic fossil collection, 1852–1853 (/isis/citation/CBB617839298/)

Article Warren D. Allmon; (2020)
Invertebrate Paleontology and Evolutionary Thinking in the US and Britain, 1860–1940 (/isis/citation/CBB053017087/)

Book Holmes, John; (2009)
Darwin's Bards: British and American Poetry in the Age of Evolution (/isis/citation/CBB000954782/)

Article Bowe, Brian J.; Oshita, Tsuyoshi; Terracina-Hartman, Carol; Chao, Wen-Chi; (2014)
Framing of Climate Change in Newspaper Coverage of the East Anglia E-Mail Scandal (/isis/citation/CBB001420055/)

Book Joseph Fitsanakis; (2020)
Redesigning Wiretapping: The Digitization of Communications Interception (/isis/citation/CBB949296828/)

Book Weber, Bruce H.; Depew, David J.; (2003)
Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered (/isis/citation/CBB001250184/)

Book Dommann, Monika; (2014)
Autoren und Apparate: die Geschichte des Copyrights im Medienwandel (/isis/citation/CBB001551280/)

Book Guzzetti, Luca; (2000)
Science and Power: The Historical Foundations of Research Policies in Europe (/isis/citation/CBB000102114/)

Thesis Braitman, Laurel; (2013)
Animal Madness: A Natural History of Disorder (/isis/citation/CBB001567524/)

Authors & Contributors
Stone, Philip
Depew, David J.
Mazzeo, Marco
Fitsanakis, Joseph
Yegge, John G.
Braitman, Laurel
Concepts
Evolution
Natural history
Scientific expeditions
Controversies and disputes
Darwinism
Geology
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
21st century
18th century
17th century
Early modern
Places
Great Britain
United States
France
Antarctica
Polar regions
Italy
Institutions
Natural History Museum (London, England)
Geological Society of London
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment