In this gripping dual biography, Huntford reexamines every detail of the great race to the South Pole between Britain's Robert Scott and Norway's Raoul Amundsen. Scott, who died along with four of his men only 11 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. A brilliant and highly readable history which captures the driving ambitions of the era and the complex, often deeply flawed, men who were charged with carrying them out.