Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) esploratore antartico

Abstract

“As a scientific leader, give me Scott; for swift and efficient polar travel, Amundsen; but when things are hopeless and there seems no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton” (Raymond Priestley). One hundred years after the death of the legendary Irish-born British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922), the wreck of his famed ship Endurance was finally discovered at a depth of 3000 meters. The epical survival of the Endurance party for almost three years in the Antarctic ice under the guidance and action of Shackleton, still sticks as an unsurpassed example of human resistance to adversity when all seems lost. Shackleton intercepted history, by crossing the final days of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration with the world emerging from the havoc of the first world war, that deeply changed the former cultural and social paradigms. This is his history, from the early days up to the expedition with Scott on the Discovery and his first as a leader on the Nimrod, to his ultimate death in South Georgia.