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Despite sitting here in October whining to myself about my cold fingers while typing, I have to admit I've got kind of a thing for grueling polar expeditions and the occasional 19th century disastrous sea voyage. I especially have a thing for Mr. Shackleton, the great heroic failure of the Edwardian era. (Not my words, but I don't recall who said them � someone on NPR, I expect).

This book is the detailed accounts of Shackleton's last Antarctic journey. He takes a crew on the Endurance to the Weddell Sea on the South American side of the South Pole, while another crew heads to the Australia side. The plan is for the Australia-side crew to set a series of food and supply depots from the coast to the center of the continent and then retreat, while Shackleton and his crew make their way, by dog- and man-power to the South Pole, and then continue clear across the continent, picking up the pre-laid supplies along the way. Only, as you may know, both teams encounter unbelievable set backs and, well, it all does not work out. And everyone is very cold.

This book is mostly Shackleton reconstructing events from his own logs, and, for the parts where he wasn't there, fromt he journals of his crewmates. He never boasts or makes any of the bravery he exhibited seem like it's anything more than the least he could have done in the circumstances. His telling is, for the most part, calm, detailed and almost scientific in it's rigor (with frequent mentions of exact longitudes and latitudes, weather specifics, animal species sited and ice conditions), but here and there he'll relate long hours of contemplation where he ponders the best thing to do for the men. His decisions are always made for their welfare and, at least as he tells it, favoritism or self-interest never enter into the equation.

Beyond the sheer "adventure" facet, the truly remarkable aspect of the story — why it is so frequently remembered and retold still � is Shackleton's leadership. Despite preposterous odds and the most treacherous of circumstances, he managed to return the entire crew of the Endurance to safety with only a touch of frostbite, after 3 years cut off from the world in Antarctica. And they all, according to the diaries Sir Ernest excerpts in his own book, kept relatively cheery and grateful for him the whole time.

I'm not one of those "leadership" people, who raves on about leadership, in the business sense. Yeah, sure, it's important to have someone competent and inspiring and visionary making big decisions and guiding the works, but I'm not going around yapping about it all the time and pillaging the "leadership and management" section at the bookstore. But I do think this book said something big to me about leadership � about the importance of keeping your cool (no pun intended) and being at once in the trenches doing the dirty work along with everyone else and also able to step back and see the big picture and make the hard decisions. And that people can band together and remain positive in the absolute suckiest of circumstances with the right role models...

Tangentially, here is huge irony with the fact that this voyage took place as WWI broke out — indeed, the Endurance left England the same week (sanctioned by King). Many of the men who Shackleton saved from the horrors of ice, the polar seas in rowboats and foodlessness came back to get promptly mowed down in the trenches of Europe.

Also, tangentially: Frank Hurley, the photographer on the Endurance made some of the most amazing photographs and movie reels in the history of photography (and the fact that they got back to civilization in tact is unbelievable � fragile glass plates and such). He was one of the first people to experiment with early color photographs. They're extremely beautiful and it's quite haunting, really, to see these men, in 1914, in color, in the ice. Edwardian color photography has become a new obsession of mine, really...

In summary, it's a dry read, to be sure, but fascinating, nonetheless.