Page 88 - All About History - Issue 26-15

Reviews

SHACKLETON’S HEROES

Survival of the South Pole’s unsung heroes

Author Wilson McOrist Publisher The Robson Press Price £20 (hardback) Released Out now
fter eight years of research, physicist and diaries, from religious faith to the promise of seeing a
lawyer Wilson McOrist has pieced together loved one’s face again.
the memories of the explorers at one of the Forget Bear Grylls or any reality TV island show: there
last great frontiers of the 20th century. It’s not was no time-out or easy exit when the going got too
Athe story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial tough for these guys. This is a story of a real struggle to
Trans-Antarctic expedition, however. This is the tale survive, and McOrist’s efforts to give each a voice after a
of those who braved one of the world’s most hostile century of silence has paid off with a gripping read.
environments to leave supplies for Shackleton. Ben Biggs
Key to McOrist’s book are the diaries of the men
involved, without which it would feel distinctly less
personal. Their characters are summarised, events
explained and the nuances of the language they use
(that, given the class differences and backgrounds of
the men, can vary greatly) are parsed for the sake of
modern understanding, but that’s no replacement for
the authenticity of their own words. So, for the best
part, McOrist allows them to tell the story themselves.
And what a story. In the awful hardships that
followed their arrival at their Antarctic base camp,
personalities clash, tempers fray and morale spikes
then dips with terrible sub-zero temperatures. As
the men are worn down by conditions that early-
20th-century technology couldn’t hope to mitigate, Ernest Shackleton led three
a myriad of coping mechanisms are detailed in their expeditions to the Antarctic
between 1901 and 1917
FRANCE 1940:

DEFENDING THE REPUBLIC
A captivating new take on the fall of France

RECOMMENDS… Author Philip Nord Publisher Yale University Press Price £18.99 Released Out now
rance’s downfall has been shrouded in uncertainty fascinating, looking into why French politicians sided with
since 1940 and many historians have tried to theThirdReichandCharlesdeGaulle’seffortstolaunch
The Silent Day understand just why the western power capitulated operations from London.
Author: Max Arthur Price: £9.99 sorapidly.ThelatesttotakeonthetaskisPhilip France 1940 is an excellent release that explains
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
F Nord, who has written an accessible and fascinating thedefeatofFranceinanaccessibleyetdetailedway.
Amasterof read. Separated into three sections, Nord provides Theshort,punchychaptersmaintainanexcellentpace
collating oral
accounts, an excellent account of Hitler’s advance through the throughout and it appeals to both casual lovers of history
Max Arthur Ardennes and the tragic failure of the Maginot Line andlongtimestudentsofWorldWarII.
turns his Thebookislivelyandengagingasitcramseve
talents
to 6 June into its 166-page length. Damning and sympathet
1944, when, equalmeasure,Nordexploresthecommonlyheld
overnight, of a French unwillingness to fight, but also points
160,000 fingeratitssupposed‘allies’whohesitatedtohelp
Allied troops
disappeared hastilyagreedtermswithHitler.France,boundb
from these geographical location, was left on its own and for
shores to facetheBlitzkriegheadon.Afterthepre-warpoli
embark on the D-Day landings. A further
24,000 had left shortly before to launch dealt with, France 1940’s centre chapters are the
the Allies’ paratrooper missions. A of the book, describing the devastating Wehrmac
peculiar emptiness fell across the land. Blitzkriegvividly,butalsoexplaininghowtheFre
The Silent Day is a vital store of
evidence for historians and sociologists divisionscouldhaverepelledit.Nordevenharks
and is a book into which the enthusiast the19thcentury,explainingthatproblemsinthe
In 1940, Charles
might enjoyably dip; every page features military had been rife since the Dreyfus affair and de Gaulle was the
fascinating insights.
military hierarchy was in no position to outthink leader of the French
likes of Erwin Rommel. The book’s conclusion is goverment-in-exile
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