KING OF THE WIND (Marguerite Henry Horseshoe Library)

KING OF THE WIND (Marguerite Henry Horseshoe Library) Review

KING OF THE WIND (Marguerite Henry Horseshoe Library) Overview

Follows the adventures of the Arabian stallion brought to England to become one of the founding sires of the Thoroughbred breed and the mute Arab stable boy who tended him with loyalty and devotion all his life.

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The Last Place on Earth (Modern Library Exploration)

The Last Place on Earth (Modern Library Exploration) Review

The Last Place on Earth (Modern Library Exploration) Feature

• ISBN13: 9780375754746
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

The Last Place on Earth (Modern Library Exploration) Overview

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the South Pole was the most coveted prize in the fiercely nationalistic modern age of exploration. In the brilliant dual biography, the award-winning writer Roland Huntford re-examines every detail of the great race to the South Pole between Britain's Robert Scott and Norway's Roald Amundsen. Scott, who dies along with four of his men only eleven miles from his next cache of supplies, became Britain's beloved failure, while Amundsen, who not only beat Scott to the Pole but returned alive, was largely forgotten. This account of their race is a gripping, highly readable history that captures the driving ambitions of the era and the complex, often deeply flawed men who were charged with carrying them out. THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH is the first of Huntford's masterly trilogy of polar biographies. It is also the only work on the subject in the English language based on the original Norwegian sources, to which Huntford returned to revise and update this edition.

The Last Place on Earth (Modern Library Exploration) Specifications

On December 14, 1911, the classical age of polar exploration ended when Norway's Roald Amundsen conquered the South Pole. His competitor for the prize, Britain's Robert Scott, arrived one month later--but died on the return with four of his men only 11 miles from their next cache of supplies. But it was Scott, ironically, who became the legend, Britain's heroic failure, "a monument to sheer ambition and bull-headed persistence. His achievement was to perpetuate the romantic myth of the explorer as martyr, and ... to glorify suffering and self-sacrifice as ends in themselves." The world promptly forgot about Amundsen.

Biographer Ronald Huntford's attempt to restore Amundsen to glory, first published in 1979 under the title Scott and Amundsen, has been thawed as part of the Modern Library Exploration series, captained by Jon Krakauer (of Into Thin Air fame). The Last Place on Earth is a complex and fascinating account of the race for this last great terrestrial goal, and it's pointedly geared toward demythologizing Scott. Though this was the age of the amateur explorer, Amundsen was a professional: he left little to chance, apprenticed with Eskimos, and obsessed over every detail. While Scott clung fast to the British rule of "No skis, no dogs," Amundsen understood that both were vital to survival, and they clearly won him the Pole.

Amundsen in Huntford's view is the "last great Viking" and Scott his bungling opposite: "stupid ... recklessly incompetent," and irresponsible in the extreme--failings that cost him and his teammates their lives. Yet for all of Scott's real or exaggerated faults, he understood far better than Amundsen the power of a well-crafted sentence. Scott's diaries were recovered and widely published, and if the world insisted on lionizing Scott, it was partly because he told a better story. Huntford's bias aside, it's clear that both Scott and Amundsen were valiant and deeply flawed. "Scott ... had set out to be an heroic example. Amundsen merely wanted to be first at the pole. Both had their prayers answered." --Svenja Soldovieri

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Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Townsend Library Edition)

Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Townsend Library Edition) Review

A fascinating read about the life and times of Booker T. Washington and his march from slavery to one of the foremost men of his time.

His views may seem quite antiquated in today's world, given what has happened and not happened in the last 100 years in race relations and it is easy to see how Black leaders of today might be critical of Washington's views and perspectives.

But to do so would be to make the all too common mistake of imprinting and transferring today's value system and experiences on a culture and time of long ago. Anyone can look back with 20-20 hindsight and criticize. What matters most is having a plan to move forward from where you are, and Booker T. Washington certainly had that. His is a remarkable story of courage, grace, and iron-willed determination, for himself and for his race.

While today's leaders and purists might criticize Washington, it should never be forgotten that he took the first steps and led his race and the entire South in the first steps, no matter how imperfect they may be in hindsight, up and away from slavery.

There had to be a Booker T. Washington to bridge the gap between what was and what was to be. He knew his role and peformed it well.

Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Townsend Library Edition) Overview

This Townsend Library classic has been carefully edited to be more accessible to today's students. It includes a background note about the book, an author's biography, and a lively afterword. Acclaimed by educators nationwide, the Townsend Library is helping millions of young adults discover the pleasure and power of reading.

Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Townsend Library Edition) Specifications

Nineteenth-century African American businessman, activist, and educator Booker Taliaferro Washington's Up from Slavery is one of the greatest American autobiographies ever written. Its mantras of black economic empowerment, land ownership, and self-help inspired generations of black leaders, including Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. In rags-to-riches fashion, Washington recounts his ascendance from early life as a mulatto slave in Virginia to a 34-year term as president of the influential, agriculturally based Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. From that position, Washington reigned as the most important leader of his people, with slogans like "cast down your buckets," which emphasized vocational merit rather than the academic and political excellence championed by his contemporary rival W.E.B. Du Bois. Though many considered him too accommodating to segregationists, Washington, as he said in his historic "Atlanta Compromise" speech of 1895, believed that "political agitation alone would not save [the Negro]," and that "property, industry, skill, intelligence, and character" would prove necessary to black Americans' success. The potency of his philosophies are alive today in the nationalist and conservative camps that compose the complex quilt of black American society.

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