- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press; 1st Edition edition (2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0195183681
- ISBN-13: 978-0195183689
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 590 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #405,866 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
I FIRST BECAME AWARE OF THE ARCTIC during the 1950s, when I was a teenager whose world was limited to the well-tended farmlands and tame urban environments of Ontario. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
I FIRST BECAME AWARE OF THE ARCTIC during the 1950s, when I was a teenager whose world was limited to the well-tended farmlands and tame urban environments of Ontario. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastically interesting history book., Aug 3 2006
By Jessica - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The last imaginary place : a human history of the Arctic world / by Robert Mcghee (Hardcover)
This is one of the most comprehensive historical books I have ever read. I don't know how Robert McGhee crammed such a vast history of such an enormous place into 320 pages. Of course, plenty of things were understated (particularly the Peary-Cook controversy) and a few things were drawn out and at times a bit dry (I found the chapter on Siberia to be slightly less interesting than the other chapters). Mostly though, McGhee is ultimately very fair in how he represents the various places he talks about, from Hudson Bay to Alaska to Spitsbergen to Siberia and beyond. No one region is represented as more important than another one, and reading the book, one comes to realize that all regions of the Arctic have very fulfilling histories.Stylistically the book is impressive as well. McGhee speaks of Greely and Franklin ways that would spark interest in someone who had no interest in Arctic history. There are many summaries of dramatic events throughout the book, keeping his "human history" consistently interesting. The book, while being comprised of stories, is based wholly on research and historical record, which gives it a textbook feel from time to time, but even the pictures and maps (which, to my amazement, are completely left out of many Arctic-related books) give the book (and stories) a lot of life. In comparison to something like Frozen in Time which was much more science-based, yet easy for anyone to understand, The Last Imaginary Place is another account of a much more extensive history by an author who is extremely passionate about his work. This particular characteristic is not uncommon in today's Arctic writers (though, in previous decades/centuries, much of the accounting of expeditions was BORING).
In the end, this book could have turned out horribly dry and boring, it could have been a neutral history book with no particular feeling involved...instead, The Last Imaginary Place is a book you want to read every page of. There are priceless tidbits of information throughout the book, and from the pages about the Ice Age to Thule to the Vikings and on to 19th & 20th century exploration, there's nothing that can be flipped through without reading...to do that would be to miss something not only important, but something that would be enjoyable to read.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fine Overview of Arctic Exploration, Mar 2 2009
By Roger D. Launius - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Last Imaginary Place (Paperback)
The arctic has long held a fascination for Europe and North America. It has led to numerous exploration parties and not a little mythology associated with the adventurers who undertook these missions. Archeologist Robert McGhee blends historical analysis with keen observation and strong writing to present a compelling account of Western Civilization's fascination with the Arctic.McGhee begins with a study of the geology of the Arctic, noting that it was geology that proved that the Earth was older and more dynamic than religionists had argued. The ideal place that documented that fundamental fact was the concept of the Ice Age, and the data demonstrating that was found in the Arctic. He comments, "the fact that we think of the `Ice Age' as an established fact of prehistory is one of the triumphs of nineteenth-century science. For most of that century, science and theology fought an extended battle over the nature of the world and mankind" (p. 12). That realization finally took hold when Arctic explorers brought back evidence supporting it.
From there McGhee proceeds chronologically through the history of the Arctic, focusing successively on the hunter-gatherer tribes that claimed the region as their own, Viking incursion into Greenland and other parts of the northland, the Inuit and their evolution over time, the search for the fables Northwest Passage, and the quest for the pole, and the European quest for power in the geopolitical sweepstakes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The expression of a unique history of an exotic Arctic region makes "The Last Imaginary Place" a wonderful reading experience. It is a very fine introduction to the history of the region and its place in Western Civilization.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Last Place, Imagined..., Mar 2 2012
By D. S. Thurlow - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The last imaginary place : a human history of the Arctic world / by Robert Mcghee (Hardcover)
Canadian author Robert McGhee's 2005 "The Last Imaginary Place" is his highly readable human history of the Arctic. An archeologist with decades of field experience in the Far North, McGhee brings to his narrative a sense of continuing wonder at the rugged but beautiful Arctic and of respect for its native inhabitatants.McGhee starts with the proposition that the Arctic has been consistently portrayed with more imagination than facts by outside observers, beginning at least with the ancient Greeks. The facts may be more interesting, as the author sketches a still evolving thesis of human habitation by successive waves of migrants. Within the North American Arctic, those waves are identified as the ancient Tuniit, the more recent Inuit, and finally various European groups.
McGhee has some interesting thoughts on the interactions between the successive waves of inhabitatants and the effects on the exploration and exploitation of a difficult environment where death is often the consequence of failure. A hidden gem is the account of the little-known journey by Samuel Hearne from Hudson's Bay to the Arctic Ocean and back during 1769-1772, in company with Dene hunters and a rare success among frequently misguided and/or disastrous expeditions. At book's end, he notes the struggle of native Arctic peoples to adapt to outside governance and to the possible effects of climate change.
McGhee offers some strong opinions on the issue of sovereignty in the Far North, and on the still controversial details of several Polar expeditions. The reader may take or leave these as desired. Oddly, McGhee insists on identifying Alaskan Inuit groups as Eskimos, a term considered archaic; his description of development in Alaska is similarly un-nuanced.
"The Last Imaginary Place" is highly recommended as an entertaining and educational read on the human history of the Arctic realm.
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