Race for the South Pole

The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen

By: Roland Huntford

Narrated by: David Thorpe

Bloomsbury presents Race for the South Pole by Roland Huntford, read by David Thorpe

For the first time ever, Roland Huntford presents each man's full account of the race to the South Pole in their own words.

In 1910 Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen set sail for Antarctica, each from his own starting point, and the epic race for the South Pole was on.

For the first time, Scott's unedited diaries run alongside those of both Amundsen and Olav Bjaaland, never before translated into English. Cutting through the welter of controversy to the events at the heart of the story, Huntford weaves the narrative from the protagonists' accounts of their own fate. What emerges is a whole new understanding of what really happened on the ice and the definitive account of the Race for the South Pole.

©2025 Roland Huntford (P)2025 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

Race for the South Pole, while allowing the reader to savour the contrasts between the expedition diaries of Scott, Amundsen and Bjaaland, also shows Huntford in continued argument with his sources. (The Spectator)

'Crucially, [Huntford] reads Norwegian, and the translations are his own. Decades of experience allow him to dilate on the idiosyncrasies of fur in the polar environment; on the workings of the anemometers and on the 'meridian sight method of finding latitude' ... This work is brilliant, and well executed.' (The Times)

‘This is a valuable book, and Huntford enriches the fascinating diary entries with his own expert analysis and insight into polar history.' (The Geographical magazine)