In August 1914, renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven set sail for the South Atlantic in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize in the history of exploration: the first crossing on foot of the Antarctic continent. They came with in eighty-five miles of their destination when their ship, <I>Endurance</I>, was trapped fast in the ice pack, and the crew was stranded on the floes. Their ordeal lasted for twenty grueling months, and the group made two near-fatal attempts to escape by open boat before they were finally rescued.<br><br>Drawing upon previously unavailable sources, Caroline Alexander gives us a riveting account of Shackleton's expedition. An extraordinary re-creation of the terrible beauty of Antarctica, the awful destruction of the ship, and the crew's heroic daily struggle for survival, <i>The Endurance</I> thrillingly describes one of the last great adventures in the brave age of exploration&#151;perhaps the greatest of them all.