BOOK REVIEW: Endurance (Shackleton's Incredible Voyage), by Alfred Lansing

9 July, 2010
BOOK REVIEW: Endurance, by Alfred Lansing
A study in greatness. Great character and great leadership.
A crew of sailors find themselves stranded on an ice flow in the Antarctic Ocean. Great blocks of ice first seize then crush their ship. Finding their situation desperate, their leader, Ernest Shackleton, leads a risky expedition: to row a lifeboat 800 miles across stormy seas to the nearest whaling station. Miraculously, he succeeds, and months later, he appears in a borrowed ship to pick up his stranded crew. The story is true, and so is the greatness.
All photos courtesy of google images.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Endurance
• Ernest Shackleton
• Book Review
• Adventure Story
• Antarctic
• Sea Exploration
• Heroic
• Leadership
• Hero
• Sailing Ship

[thebailey67]

I love how you added the music and pics. My Dad just got this amazing table top book with hundreds of Frank Hurley photos. Its just incredible that the story is amazing and they had maybe the best photographer at the time on board!..good luck for us...bad luck for Hurley...well...maybe not so bad. He survived along with all those brave men. Good review.

[LoveMattersMost]

@thebailey67 It's always fun to hear from another person who discovered the Shackleton adventure story. It's so surreal to me. Setting out rowing in that small boat over hundreds of miles of stormy ocean, in order to find a small island, to save his crew. Basicly, they probably figured it was a last ditch suicide journey. But then to learn it's real, and it really happened, and there are the Hurley pictures to prove it.. Wow! Thanks for your kind and supportive comments! Brian.

[flan984]

This is an unbelievable story Brian, thank you so much for sharing. This looks like something out of a Verne book or something... Shackleton was a great man indeed... And everything here, from the men’s fight for survival on the ice, to the trip on that small boat to find land, and the absolutely unbelievable happy ending is larger than life. The stuff legends are forged out of

Oh, and I adored the images you showed here, fantastic little snippets of history...

Great video, once again Brian :)

[LoveMattersMost]

@flan984 Hi Rui! Yes, when I think of my own safe, secure, simple life, then I compare with what happened to them..basicly they were afraid for their lives everyday for over a year!..then, I realize that my so called problems are really no problems at all compared to theirs! I think its good to have that kind of perspective to appreciate what we have. Brian.

[TheFaustianMan]

Now THAT is a riveting story! Better than most fiction! Some men drink life pouring like an avalanche coming down a mountain.

I wonder why they didn't make this a big budget movie? But they made that one with the shrimp boat (or whatever it was) with George Clooney and Mark Walberg this big-budget thriller. And the Clooney story people died because they didn't want to stop fishing. They knew a storm was coming, but I guess they were too macho for that. Oh well

The choices a person makes...

[LoveMattersMost]

@TheFaustianMan You raise an excellent question-With such a heroic story, why have there been so few Movies? My only guess is that it is a period piece, and most people in the under 40 ticket buying public are not enamored with a bunch of unwashed guys in Sealskin suits, freezing their behinds off, floating on a chunk of ice in the middle of nowhere-except me and you maybe Hahaha! : P

[thebailey67]

I borrowed this from my Dad.....we are both becoing truly obsessed with Shackleton.

[LoveMattersMost]

@luvperu1 Hi Polly. I like to make odd little videos on topics that I find interesting. And it always pleasantly surprises me when other people find them interesting too. Thank-You!

Brian.

[LoveMattersMost]

@EmeraldxFairy It's insteresting, isn't it? That most of us humans live lives like contented grazing sheep. Yet, here and there, there is a Lion like Shackleton among us. : ) Bri.