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Antarctic Destinies: Scott, Shackleton, and the Changing Face of Heroism
This book covers the two most famous expeditions of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition of 1910-12 and Ernest Shackleton's Endurance expedition of 1914-16. For decades after his tragic death on the return journey from the South Pole, to which he had been beaten by five weeks by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, Scott was regarded as a saint-like figure with an unassailable reputation born from his heroic martyrdom in the frozen wastes of the Antarctic. In recent years, however, Scott has attracted some of the most intense criticism any explorer has ever received. Shackleton's reputation, meanwhile, has followed a reverse trajectory. Although his achievements were always appreciated, they were never celebrated with nearly the same degree of adulation that traditionally surrounded Scott.
Today, Scott and Shackleton occupy very different places in the polar pantheon of British heroes. Stephanie Barczewski explores the evolution of their reputations, and finds it has little to do with new discoveries regarding their lives and characters, but far more to do with broader cultural changes and changes in conceptions of heroism in Britain and the United States.
Today, Scott and Shackleton occupy very different places in the polar pantheon of British heroes. Stephanie Barczewski explores the evolution of their reputations, and finds it has little to do with new discoveries regarding their lives and characters, but far more to do with broader cultural changes and changes in conceptions of heroism in Britain and the United States.
390 pages, Hardcover
First published February 17, 2007
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About the author
Stephanie Barczewski
11 books4 followersA specialist in modern British history, Stephanie Barczewski is professor of history at Clemson University, where she has taught since 1996. Dr. Barczewski has been awarded the Gentry Award, Clemson's highest honor for teaching in the humanities, as well as a Faculty Award of Distinction for student mentoring from the Clemson National Scholars Program.
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June 18, 2025
For anyone with an interest in Antarctic exploration, Stephanie Barczewski asks an important question: What happened to bring about the dramatic reversal in the reputations of Scott and Shackleton that occurred in the second half of the twentieth century? Her answer to that question is the main subject of her excellent book: "Scott and Shackleton became enmeshed in a rivalry that has extended beyond their deaths to the present day, and seems likely to continue into the future. In their lifetimes they competed with each other for public acclaim, for financial support for their polar ventures, and above all for the glory of becoming the first man to reach the South Pole, a prize that, ultimately, neither man won. Scott's death in 1912 elevated him to the status of martyred national hero who far eclipsed Shackleton in the eyes of the British public. Shackleton remained in Scott's shadow for decades thereafter, his own accomplishments barely recalled or credited. In more recent years, however, the tide has turned. In the late twentieth century, Shackleton came to be regarded as the greater leader, the greater explorer and the greater hero, while Scott was denigrated as a bungler, a martinet and, ultimately, a failure."
She concludes that "the explanation lies in how our perceptions and interpretations of their characters and achievements have changed." This isn't, primarily, a book about Scott, Shackleton, or the 'heroic age' of Antarctic exploration, but rather is a book about "the malleability of heroism." She then expands on this by commenting that "real men become archetypes when filtered through popular memory, and real events become myths. When the needs of a particular culture change and require new archetypes and myths, then those real men and real events change too. What constitutes the heroic and who becomes the hero is a function of cultural priorities and values." Insightfully, she also notes that the changing places occupied by Scott and Shackleton in the polar pantheon has come about with little new information about either man or the expeditions they led coming to light - in other words, new data does not explain the sudden reversal in their statures. Rather, "any change in reputations that has taken place has occurred almost entirely through the reassessment of information that has long been known and long been discussed." Both men, and their expeditions, offer plenty of opportunities for the interpreter to emphasise heroism, or poor decisions and errors in judgement. Which path is followed by the Antarctic historian is a matter of choice, and it is the cultural climate in which those decisions are made (and received by the reader) that is of especial interest to Barczewski. 100 years ago, Scott was seen as a hero; today he is seen by many as a bumbling idiot whose folly led to his death and the death of his companions. Shackleton was seen as somewhat admirable but untrustworthy, and his exploits as a minor distraction from the First World War; today he is seen by many as one of the greatest leaders in human history. "But they are the same men: the events of their lives, their personalities, their virtues, their flaws - none of these things have changed. Instead, it is we who have changed, and the world in which we live."
In unpacking the reasons for Scott and Shackleton's changing fortunes in the court of public opinion, Barczewski begins by briefly tracing both the history of Antarctic exploration and the early lives of her two protagonists. She then looks at public perceptions of polar exploration and explorers and briefly considers the Discovery and Nimrod expeditions, before looking in more detail at the Terra Nova and Endurance expeditions. Following this, she examines Scott and Shackleton's changing reputations by examining their stature in the period during and immediately after the First World War. One of her main arguments in this section is that their reputations at that time were largely determined by the wartime context, and in Scott's favour. She then spends several chapters looking at the period from the 1920s to the 1970s, when Scott continued to be regarded as the greater hero, and the decline in Scott's reputation that has been evident since the 1960s. She also examines the 'Shackleton mania' that has erupted since the 1990s. She is surely right when she notes that it is largely impossible today to write about either Scott or Shackleton without castigating the other, and that this is an odd phenomenon. I think she is also right when she concludes that Scott has been hard done by, and that by acknowledging that fact, we do not need to take a position against Shackleton. "To even attempt what they did with the knowledge and equipment available to them in the early twentieth century required immense courage, and to achieve what they did required immense physical stamina and mental strength. Both, in my opinion, were great men."
When starting to look at Scott's Antarctic career, Barczewski seeks to dispel some of the negative myths that have grown up around Scott's reputation in recent years. She points out that there is no basis for the idea that he turned to exploration as a way of escaping from a failing career; on the contrary, in 1901, he showed considerable potential as a naval officer. His appointment to command the Discovery expedition owed much more to the British penchant for putting Naval officers in command of polar expeditions and to Scott's pursuit of such a post as a means to advancement. The griping of some of his men about his leadership, on both the Discovery and Terra Nova expeditions, was not unusual, and certainly not more prevalent than on other expeditions. Again, while the calorific value of his sledging rations proved inadequate, it must be remembered that the science of nutrition was in its infancy in those days. His use of ponies and men for transport was reasonable, as Shackleton came within a whisker of the pole using those methods; and his selection of the members of his final polar party was based on close observation of his men over the preceding months. Finally, his diary admits that he took many risks and made many mistakes (as did both Shackleton and Amundsen), and the omissions from it in its published form were minor and no more prominent than what was customary in other explorers' diaries at the time. Interestingly, these were all issues faced by Shackleton as well, but are not generally cited as examples of his incompetence. "The way that Scott's death was viewed in British culture in the years immediately following his death had far more to do with the cultural climate of the Great War than with the onset of an 'end of empire' mentality or a British public in desperate denial that their nations power was inexorably in decline...the same set of 'facts' can thus give rise to very different interpretations, and very different stories can emerge as a result." Another frequent charge brought against Scott is that he was a martinet. He was certainly a firm believer in orders and discipline, and that the Navy's way was the only way, but neither was he rigidly inflexible in such matters. His men saw him as a slightly aloof and distant figure, but this healthy respect did not cross into fear or feelings of intimidation. Notably, his expeditions did not suffer from ill-discipline or mutiny, something that was more common in expeditions run along more democratic lines. "Scott led through force of character, not iron-fisted authoritarianism." Barczewski also gives an even-handed assessment of Scott's attitude towards animals: "Scott had his limits as to what degree of animal cruelty he would tolerate; he would exploit animals for his purposes, but only to a point. Whether this attitude was a virtue or a flaw depends on one's own feelings about our canine and equine friends."
Next, Barczewski turns to consider the response to Scott's death and Shackleton's return from the Endurance expedition, and what it tells us about ideas of heroism. "Scott was, in a way that Shackleton could never be, a hero of the establishment, his status acknowledged and sanctioned by the military and political elite. In the era during and immediately following the First World War, this alone was sufficient to account for his greater prominence as a hero in British culture." The Great War also created a cultural context that was not eager for tales of heroic survival with happy endings and was more conducive to stories of noble death. Furthermore, while the Victorian culture of death and mourning had gradually given way to a more restrained approach in the Edwardian years, death in the service of one's country had come to be admired more than ever. The deaths of Scott and his companions came to be seen as an exemplar of the kind of death that men should suffer in the war, and they were often talked about as if they had died in battle. Another reason for Scott's greater prominence in the years after his death is that he "was the archetype of the late Victorian and Edwardian hero, for he embodied a type of masculinity that was both the contemporary norm and the contemporary ideal...he was an emphatically military and imperial figure." This "allowed him to fit a conventional heroic mold that was a prominent part of Victorian and Edwardian hagiography...Naval heroes were expected to be both brave and righteous." So, Scott was seen as both an imperial and a manly hero, and this resonated with the contemporary culture in a way that Shackleton did not. Shackleton's ambitions were a bit too nakedly apparent, while Scott hid his undoubted ambition under a cloak of self-discipline. While Scott was a very emotional man who was susceptible to bouts of depression, in public, he was restrained and reserved. This fit the Edwardian ideal of men as emotionally ascetic much better than the more ebullient Shackleton. Memorably, Barczewski describes both men as "the Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe of polar exploration, the one restrained and cautious, the other mercurial and fiery." In recent years, of course, these portrayals have benefited Shackleton as our culture has changed, preferring the rebellious anti-hero to the more conventional heroic type. Barczewski also takes a fascinating look at the different physical memorials devoted to both men, and why there are many more that commemorate Scott. She concludes that "Scott, and the men who died with him, were linked to a variety of public and private institutions that had a vested interest in commemorating them. In contrast, Shackleton suffered from having been born in Ireland, where the commemoration of an imperial hero with unionist political beliefs was impossible in 1922 and for decades thereafter."
The chapters outlining the books written by and about Scott and Shackleton are fascinating, and her analysis of the changing tone and attitude of the biographies written about both men provides an excellent review of Antarctic literature. Beginning with the period up to the 1950s, she looks in detail at the men's own memoirs, pointing out that Scott has the distinct advantage of being the more gifted writer. In a fitting tribute to Scott's abilities as a writer, she contends that his "descriptions of the Antarctic landscape remain unparalleled for their combination of technical accuracy and poetic beauty; his close attention to detail never causes him to lose sight of the emotional resonance and sheer aesthetic wonder of what he sees. Despite the drama inherent in the events and scenes he describes, he never lapses into excessively purple prose, though he manages to convey a wide range of emotions and impressions. Above all, his writing is admirably compact." The biographies written in this period are generally positive in their attitude towards Scott, and the single full-length biography of Shackleton is similar in its presentation. Following this, Barczewski examines the change in attitude to Scott that became evident in the biographies written in the 1960s, which started to take a more critical tone. One important factor is the change in conceptions of heroism and of the qualities that make a hero, which took place in that decade. A watershed was reached in 1979 with the publication of Roland Huntford's 'Scott and Amundsen.' Love it or loathe it, Huntford's work is undoubtedly an extremely important piece of polar writing. It did not attempt to be a balanced work, but was a self-conscious attempt to redress what Huntford saw as the unfair esteem in which Scott was held. Huntford had come, through his research, to dislike Scott, portraying him as nothing more than a mediocre, bungling incompetent. While Huntford undoubtedly stretches many of his claims beyond what the evidence will support, his book remains hugely influential: "Every author who has subsequently written about him [Scott] has been forced to make clear his or her stance on Huntford's views, or at least to acknowledge that they exist."
Equally interesting is the trend in more recent years away from Huntford's view, and back towards a more sympathetic and balanced take on Scott and his achievements. Notable in this regard are the books written by Susan Solomon, David Crane and Max Jones. What these authors, particularly Crane and Jones, recognise is that it isn't Scott who has changed but us. As Crane puts it, "It is not that we see him differently from the way [his contemporaries] did, but that we see him the same, and instinctively do not like it." Barczewski comments that "Crane's biography does a tremendous job of restoring Scott's humanity, in the process doing far more to recover his reputation than Fienne's stridency or Solomon's scientific data ever will." I think that Barczewski is right to contend that Scott has been somewhat hard done by in how he has been assessed in the last 40 years or so, and she does a fantastic job of explaining the reasons why. I echo her hope that some day we can appreciate both Scott and Shackleton as men as well as cultural icons, and recognise both their qualities and achievements in equal measure.
She concludes that "the explanation lies in how our perceptions and interpretations of their characters and achievements have changed." This isn't, primarily, a book about Scott, Shackleton, or the 'heroic age' of Antarctic exploration, but rather is a book about "the malleability of heroism." She then expands on this by commenting that "real men become archetypes when filtered through popular memory, and real events become myths. When the needs of a particular culture change and require new archetypes and myths, then those real men and real events change too. What constitutes the heroic and who becomes the hero is a function of cultural priorities and values." Insightfully, she also notes that the changing places occupied by Scott and Shackleton in the polar pantheon has come about with little new information about either man or the expeditions they led coming to light - in other words, new data does not explain the sudden reversal in their statures. Rather, "any change in reputations that has taken place has occurred almost entirely through the reassessment of information that has long been known and long been discussed." Both men, and their expeditions, offer plenty of opportunities for the interpreter to emphasise heroism, or poor decisions and errors in judgement. Which path is followed by the Antarctic historian is a matter of choice, and it is the cultural climate in which those decisions are made (and received by the reader) that is of especial interest to Barczewski. 100 years ago, Scott was seen as a hero; today he is seen by many as a bumbling idiot whose folly led to his death and the death of his companions. Shackleton was seen as somewhat admirable but untrustworthy, and his exploits as a minor distraction from the First World War; today he is seen by many as one of the greatest leaders in human history. "But they are the same men: the events of their lives, their personalities, their virtues, their flaws - none of these things have changed. Instead, it is we who have changed, and the world in which we live."
In unpacking the reasons for Scott and Shackleton's changing fortunes in the court of public opinion, Barczewski begins by briefly tracing both the history of Antarctic exploration and the early lives of her two protagonists. She then looks at public perceptions of polar exploration and explorers and briefly considers the Discovery and Nimrod expeditions, before looking in more detail at the Terra Nova and Endurance expeditions. Following this, she examines Scott and Shackleton's changing reputations by examining their stature in the period during and immediately after the First World War. One of her main arguments in this section is that their reputations at that time were largely determined by the wartime context, and in Scott's favour. She then spends several chapters looking at the period from the 1920s to the 1970s, when Scott continued to be regarded as the greater hero, and the decline in Scott's reputation that has been evident since the 1960s. She also examines the 'Shackleton mania' that has erupted since the 1990s. She is surely right when she notes that it is largely impossible today to write about either Scott or Shackleton without castigating the other, and that this is an odd phenomenon. I think she is also right when she concludes that Scott has been hard done by, and that by acknowledging that fact, we do not need to take a position against Shackleton. "To even attempt what they did with the knowledge and equipment available to them in the early twentieth century required immense courage, and to achieve what they did required immense physical stamina and mental strength. Both, in my opinion, were great men."
When starting to look at Scott's Antarctic career, Barczewski seeks to dispel some of the negative myths that have grown up around Scott's reputation in recent years. She points out that there is no basis for the idea that he turned to exploration as a way of escaping from a failing career; on the contrary, in 1901, he showed considerable potential as a naval officer. His appointment to command the Discovery expedition owed much more to the British penchant for putting Naval officers in command of polar expeditions and to Scott's pursuit of such a post as a means to advancement. The griping of some of his men about his leadership, on both the Discovery and Terra Nova expeditions, was not unusual, and certainly not more prevalent than on other expeditions. Again, while the calorific value of his sledging rations proved inadequate, it must be remembered that the science of nutrition was in its infancy in those days. His use of ponies and men for transport was reasonable, as Shackleton came within a whisker of the pole using those methods; and his selection of the members of his final polar party was based on close observation of his men over the preceding months. Finally, his diary admits that he took many risks and made many mistakes (as did both Shackleton and Amundsen), and the omissions from it in its published form were minor and no more prominent than what was customary in other explorers' diaries at the time. Interestingly, these were all issues faced by Shackleton as well, but are not generally cited as examples of his incompetence. "The way that Scott's death was viewed in British culture in the years immediately following his death had far more to do with the cultural climate of the Great War than with the onset of an 'end of empire' mentality or a British public in desperate denial that their nations power was inexorably in decline...the same set of 'facts' can thus give rise to very different interpretations, and very different stories can emerge as a result." Another frequent charge brought against Scott is that he was a martinet. He was certainly a firm believer in orders and discipline, and that the Navy's way was the only way, but neither was he rigidly inflexible in such matters. His men saw him as a slightly aloof and distant figure, but this healthy respect did not cross into fear or feelings of intimidation. Notably, his expeditions did not suffer from ill-discipline or mutiny, something that was more common in expeditions run along more democratic lines. "Scott led through force of character, not iron-fisted authoritarianism." Barczewski also gives an even-handed assessment of Scott's attitude towards animals: "Scott had his limits as to what degree of animal cruelty he would tolerate; he would exploit animals for his purposes, but only to a point. Whether this attitude was a virtue or a flaw depends on one's own feelings about our canine and equine friends."
Next, Barczewski turns to consider the response to Scott's death and Shackleton's return from the Endurance expedition, and what it tells us about ideas of heroism. "Scott was, in a way that Shackleton could never be, a hero of the establishment, his status acknowledged and sanctioned by the military and political elite. In the era during and immediately following the First World War, this alone was sufficient to account for his greater prominence as a hero in British culture." The Great War also created a cultural context that was not eager for tales of heroic survival with happy endings and was more conducive to stories of noble death. Furthermore, while the Victorian culture of death and mourning had gradually given way to a more restrained approach in the Edwardian years, death in the service of one's country had come to be admired more than ever. The deaths of Scott and his companions came to be seen as an exemplar of the kind of death that men should suffer in the war, and they were often talked about as if they had died in battle. Another reason for Scott's greater prominence in the years after his death is that he "was the archetype of the late Victorian and Edwardian hero, for he embodied a type of masculinity that was both the contemporary norm and the contemporary ideal...he was an emphatically military and imperial figure." This "allowed him to fit a conventional heroic mold that was a prominent part of Victorian and Edwardian hagiography...Naval heroes were expected to be both brave and righteous." So, Scott was seen as both an imperial and a manly hero, and this resonated with the contemporary culture in a way that Shackleton did not. Shackleton's ambitions were a bit too nakedly apparent, while Scott hid his undoubted ambition under a cloak of self-discipline. While Scott was a very emotional man who was susceptible to bouts of depression, in public, he was restrained and reserved. This fit the Edwardian ideal of men as emotionally ascetic much better than the more ebullient Shackleton. Memorably, Barczewski describes both men as "the Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe of polar exploration, the one restrained and cautious, the other mercurial and fiery." In recent years, of course, these portrayals have benefited Shackleton as our culture has changed, preferring the rebellious anti-hero to the more conventional heroic type. Barczewski also takes a fascinating look at the different physical memorials devoted to both men, and why there are many more that commemorate Scott. She concludes that "Scott, and the men who died with him, were linked to a variety of public and private institutions that had a vested interest in commemorating them. In contrast, Shackleton suffered from having been born in Ireland, where the commemoration of an imperial hero with unionist political beliefs was impossible in 1922 and for decades thereafter."
The chapters outlining the books written by and about Scott and Shackleton are fascinating, and her analysis of the changing tone and attitude of the biographies written about both men provides an excellent review of Antarctic literature. Beginning with the period up to the 1950s, she looks in detail at the men's own memoirs, pointing out that Scott has the distinct advantage of being the more gifted writer. In a fitting tribute to Scott's abilities as a writer, she contends that his "descriptions of the Antarctic landscape remain unparalleled for their combination of technical accuracy and poetic beauty; his close attention to detail never causes him to lose sight of the emotional resonance and sheer aesthetic wonder of what he sees. Despite the drama inherent in the events and scenes he describes, he never lapses into excessively purple prose, though he manages to convey a wide range of emotions and impressions. Above all, his writing is admirably compact." The biographies written in this period are generally positive in their attitude towards Scott, and the single full-length biography of Shackleton is similar in its presentation. Following this, Barczewski examines the change in attitude to Scott that became evident in the biographies written in the 1960s, which started to take a more critical tone. One important factor is the change in conceptions of heroism and of the qualities that make a hero, which took place in that decade. A watershed was reached in 1979 with the publication of Roland Huntford's 'Scott and Amundsen.' Love it or loathe it, Huntford's work is undoubtedly an extremely important piece of polar writing. It did not attempt to be a balanced work, but was a self-conscious attempt to redress what Huntford saw as the unfair esteem in which Scott was held. Huntford had come, through his research, to dislike Scott, portraying him as nothing more than a mediocre, bungling incompetent. While Huntford undoubtedly stretches many of his claims beyond what the evidence will support, his book remains hugely influential: "Every author who has subsequently written about him [Scott] has been forced to make clear his or her stance on Huntford's views, or at least to acknowledge that they exist."
Equally interesting is the trend in more recent years away from Huntford's view, and back towards a more sympathetic and balanced take on Scott and his achievements. Notable in this regard are the books written by Susan Solomon, David Crane and Max Jones. What these authors, particularly Crane and Jones, recognise is that it isn't Scott who has changed but us. As Crane puts it, "It is not that we see him differently from the way [his contemporaries] did, but that we see him the same, and instinctively do not like it." Barczewski comments that "Crane's biography does a tremendous job of restoring Scott's humanity, in the process doing far more to recover his reputation than Fienne's stridency or Solomon's scientific data ever will." I think that Barczewski is right to contend that Scott has been somewhat hard done by in how he has been assessed in the last 40 years or so, and she does a fantastic job of explaining the reasons why. I echo her hope that some day we can appreciate both Scott and Shackleton as men as well as cultural icons, and recognise both their qualities and achievements in equal measure.
November 24, 2025
Having read three other books before this one in preparation for a trip to Antarctica this one didn’t add much to my fund of knowledge . An interesting tidbit was that somewhere between 50-70% of the world’s fresh water is locked up in the polar ice cap. So hey, let’s make sure we keep pumping fossil fuel emissions into the atmosphere and melt it. Scott, although he died, was at first a great hero. This was heavily influenced by the zeitgeist surrounding WWI and all the associated deaths. Shackleton, not so much, until later when everything flipped.
April 21, 2025
Very informative though repetitive in its points. Still a solid book for understanding the changing perceptions of heroism through the decades
December 1, 2013
I sought out this book after reading An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science and being intrigued by the subject but a bit disappointed in the execution. Stephanie Barczewski's book starts out a lot better, with a really good telling of the three famous Antarctic expeditions of Scott and Shackleton. The first third of the book: five stars. After that, however, it gets a lot less good. Barczewski spends the last two hundred pages or so examining the legacy of the two explorers, and how perceptions of them have changed over time. This part of the book is interesting at times, but it seems that she uncovered, and described, every mention of either explorer, or their crew members, that has been made in the last ninety years. She even briefly describes the career of a race horse that was named after Shackleton. This is, in a way, a very good 117-page book about Antarctic exploration with a very lengthy epilogue.
March 15, 2011
Although it gets a bit academic in some chapters - threatening to turn into a mere list of every cultural reference to either explorer - its core is a fine, careful, nuanced look at how very silly most of Scott and Shackleton's fans and critics have been. A great case study in what our choices of hero say about... us - and how much deeper you have to go to get back to them.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews