Barrow's Boys: A Stirring Story of Daring Fortitude and Outright Lunacy

Book Description
Barrow's Boys is a spellbinding account of perilous journeys to uncharted areas under the most challenging conditions. Re-creating the successes and harrowing failures of the original extreme adventurers, Fergus Fleming captures the incredibly brave, and often downright insane, passion for exploration that led a band of men into situations that would humble even the bravest adventurers today. These men served under John Barrow, Second Secretary to the Admiralty, who, after the Napoleonic wars, launched the most ambitious program of exploration the world has ever seen. For the next thirty years, his handpicked teams of elite naval officers scoured the globe on a mission to fill the blanks that littered the atlases of the day. From the first disastrous trip down the Congo, in search of the Niger River, Barrow maintained his resolve in the face of continuous catastrophes. His explorers often died of sickness or at the hands of unfriendly natives, and they struggled under minuscule budgets that forced them to resort to pulling enormous ships across floating ice fields; to eating mice, raw meat, or their own shoes; and even to horrifying acts of cannibalism. While many of the journeys failed entirely, Barrow and his men ultimately opened Africa to the world, discovered Antarctica, and pried apart the mandibles of the Arctic. Many of the missions have gone down among the greatest in history, yet they have never before been collected into one volume that captures the full sweep of Barrow's program. Beyond their own renowned discoveries, Barrow's officers inspired scores of men, from Livingstone to Shackleton, to continue the incredible quest for knowledge well into the twentieth century. Never again would such a disparate and entertaining band of explorers stalk the world. PRAISE FOR BARROW'S BOYS: "A rollicking narrative about the real thing: nineteenth-century British seafaring exploits ... A riveting yarn."--Grace Lichtenstein, The Washington Post Book World


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Today's YAs have not had the opportunity to sit in a semi-dark classroom and watch grainy, b/w, silent films showing the exploits of Martin and Osa Johnson, Roy Chapman Andrews, or Richard E. Byrd. These and other explorers inspired generations of armchair travelers to investigate the exploits of Mungo Park, James Ross, Lady Jane Franklin and a host of other naturalists, paleontologists, and archaeologists. The results of their efforts can still be found in museums throughout the world. This splendid book will serve the same purpose as those grainy films. Readers will vicariously accompany early 19th-century explorers sent out by John Barrow (the little-known Second Secretary to the British Admiralty) "to fill in the blanks that littered the atlases of the day." Although the text proceeds chronologically, each chapter can stand alone: chapter titles include "The Man Who Ate His Boots" and "The Madman of Timbuctoo." Serious students of the social sciences will study the maps and timeline; catalogue the flora and fauna; marvel at the primary sources in the extensive bibliography and make note of the contributions of these expeditions. Those just looking for "a good read" can select from a cornucopia of adventures. They can vicariously winter in Arctic waters with John Franklin. They might set out to trace the course of the Niger with the "hot-tempered, red-bearded, pipe smoking" Hugh Clapperton. They can explore the Antarctic with Captain Jules D'Urville ("fifty, crippled by gout, and looked as if he would die before the end of the voyage."). A corker! KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 1998, Grove Press, dist. byPublishers Group West, 489p. illus. maps. notes. bibliog. index. 23cm. 99-055841., $15.00. Ages 16 to adult. Reviewer: Professor John E. Boyd; Jenkintown, PA , July 2001 (Vol. 35, No. 4)


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