Captain Scott
by Sir Ranulph Fiennes
Hodder and Stoughton $260
After more than 50 biographies of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, is there really room for another? Well yes, perhaps just one - provided it is by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, described by the Guinness Book Of Records as the world's greatest living explorer.
The story of Scott's doomed 1912 expedition to the South Pole has enjoyed a special place in the lore of western culture for almost a century, as a yardstick for bravery, perseverance and dignity in the face of pain and death.
Who, having heard this tragedy, could forget the sheer pathos of that stiff-upper-lip resolve? Lawrence Oates, hopelessly crippled by frostbite, stumbling off to meet his end in that blizzard rather than inconvenience his companions; Scott, Henry Bowers and Edward Wilson eschewing the morphine option, electing to slowly freeze to death instead.
And yet the past few decades have been hard on old-style British heroes. Like T. E. Lawrence, Florence Nightingale and other figures, Scott has been the subject of harsh historical revisionism. Several more recent books about him have set out to debunk the man of legend, seeking a more banal truth beneath a myth.