North Pole

Erling Kagi

Throughout human history, few places on Earth have evoked such excitement and fascination as the Arctic. It's an otherworldly place, where the sun rises and stays in the sky for a full six months before setting, plunging the expanse of ice and water into darkness for half a year.

Along with Erling Kagge, who ventured to the North Pole in the spring of 1990, we hear the story of the Arctic as it has never been told before. From Herodotus, who first wondered what the northernmost point of our planet would look like, to the intrepid early cartographers who mapped the world, and the legendary expeditions led by Fridtjof Nansen and Robert Peary—the world's first renowned polar explorers—who were in the grip of a dangerous obsession with reaching the North Pole first. What emerges is a new history of the world, spanning thousands of years, as seen from the "shining silvery emptiness" of the Arctic.

Blending memories of Kaag's own 1990 expedition with this epic history, "The North Pole" is an adventure story, a book about the representation of hidden human dreams, about difficult parents and their difficult children, and a psychological record of what it means to keep putting one foot in front of the other in the face of adversity. It is for anyone who has stared into the distance—and wondered what happens if you keep walking.