Product Description

From The Ice:

"It appears out of the fog and low clouds, like a white comet in the twilight.

To enter Greater Antarctica is to be drawn into a maelstrom of ice. Ice is the beginning of Antarctica and ice is its end. As one moves from perimeter to interior, the proportion of ice relentlessly increases. Ice creates more ice, and ice defines ice. Everything else is suppressed. This is a world derived from a single substance, water, in a single crystalline state, snow, transformed into a lithosphere composed of a single mineral, ice."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #639671 in Books
• Published on: 1999-08-15
• Released on: 1999-08-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 428 pages

From Library Journal
Half of this book is a detailed, scientific, sometimes rhapsodic dissertation on Antarctica's most prominent feature: ice in its various forms. Interspersed are chapters on the exploration, geopolitics, earth sciences, literature, and art of the region: intellectual histories assuming background knowledge. The alienness of Antarctica is stressed. Pyne, a professional historian, author of books such as Fire in America (1982), has written a work of interest to scholars and specialists, though likely to overwhelm the general reader. J.F. Husband, Framingham State Coll. Lib., Mass.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"The Ice is a compilation of more about ice than you knew you wanted to know, yet sheer compelling significance holds attention page by page . . . Mr. Pyne dizzies the mind yet conveys a view of Antarctica that interweaves physical science with humanistic inquiry and perception. His audacity as well as his presentation warrant admiration, for the implications of The Ice are vast."
- The New York Times Book Review

". . . an impressive work, one enhanced by a beautiful cover photograph and a selection of quotes by writers and explorers, including Tennyson, Poe, Byrd, and Cook."
- Canadian Book Review Annual

About the Author
Stephen J. Pyne is professor of history at Arizona State University. He is the author of ten books, including World Fire: The Culture of Fire on Earth.