Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-26T19:19:41.868Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Antarctica and the modern geographical imagination (1918–1960)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

Klaus J. Dodds
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 OEX

Abstract

This paper examines how different technologies of exploration and mapping transformed human understanding of the Antarctic in the period 1918–1960. In the aftermath of the ‘heroic’ expeditions, European and American governments began to invest considerable monies in support of national expeditions for the purpose of claiming and mapping the polar continent. The collection of practical geographical information during the inter-war period was overtaken by the advent of polar aviation and aerial mapping in the 1930s. The aeroplane and the aerial camera played key parts in expanding stores of knowledge about the continent and altering perceptions of place. Finally, the paper considers the 1955–1958 Trans-Antarctic Expedition (TAE). This venture was significant because it was widely understood to be the final chapter in the geographical and scientific assualt on the Antarctic. The TAE was the high point of polar achievement, as a range of technologies were brought to bear on the surface of the Antarctic icesheet. Thereafter, the cultural and political significance of the polar continent changed in the face of new challenges for human exploration in the realms of outer space and the Moon.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alzerreca, C. 1949. História de la Antartida. Buenos Aires: Editorial Hemisferio.Google Scholar
Baughman, T. 1994. Before the heroes came. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Beck, P. 1986. International politics of Antarctica. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Bowman, G. 1959. From Scott to Fuchs. London: Evans Brothers.Google Scholar
Byrd, R. 1926. The first flight over the North Pole. The National Geographic Magazine 38: 350368.Google Scholar
Byrd, R. 1980. Alone. Los Angeles: Island Press. (Originally published 1938.)Google Scholar
Carter, P. 1988. The road to Botany Bay. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Chaturvedi, S. 1990. The dawning of Antarctica. New Delhi: Segment Books.Google Scholar
Corn, J. 1983. The winged gospel: America's romance with aviation 1900–1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cosgrove, D. 1994. Contested global visions: one world, one Earth, and the Apollo space photographs. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 84: 270294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cosgrove, D. 1996. Geography and vision. Inaugural Lecture Series, Royal Holloway, University of London.Google Scholar
Dalby, S. 1990. Creating the second cold war. London: Pinter.Google Scholar
De Landa, M. 1991. War in the age of intelligent machines. New York: Scribner.Google Scholar
Dodds, K. 1996a. To photograph the Antarctic: British polar exploration and the FIDASE. Ecumene 3: 6569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodds, K. 1996b. The end of a polar empire? The Falkland Islands Dependencies and Commonwealth reactions to British polar policy. Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 24: 392421.Google Scholar
Driekhausen, M. 1985. Aerial perception. Philadelphia: Art Alliance Press.Google Scholar
Driver, F. 1991. Henry Morton Stanley and his critics: geography, exploration and empire. Past and Present 133: 134166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Driver, F. 1992. Geography's empire: histories of geographical knowledge. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 10: 2540.Google Scholar
Driver, F. 1994. Geography triumphant? Joseph Conrad and the imperial adventure. The Conradian 18: 110116.Google Scholar
Fuchs, V. 1959. The crossing of the Antarctic. The National Geographic Magazine 115: 2547.Google Scholar
Fuchs, V. 1979. Introduction. In: Bodding, J (editor). Antarctic photography 1910–1916. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Fuchs, V., and Hillary, E.. 1958. The crossing of Antarctica. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
Gero, J., and Root, D.. 1995. Public representations and private concerns: archaeology in the pages of National Geographic. In: Gathercole, P., and Lowenthal, D. (editors). The politics of the past. London: Routledge: 1937.Google Scholar
Glacken, C. 1967. Traces on the rhodian shore. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, R. 1986. Antarctica and world politics. Unpublished MA thesis. Hobart: University of Tasmania.Google Scholar
Harley, B. 1988. Maps, knowledge and power. In: Cosgrove, D., and Daniels, S. (editors). The iconography of landscape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 277312.Google Scholar
Harley, B. 1992. Deconstructing the map. In: Barnes, T., and Duncan, J. (editors). Writing worlds. London: Routledge: 231247.Google Scholar
Headland, R. 1989. Chronological list of Antarctic expeditions and related historical events. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heffernan, M. 1989. Bringing the desert to bloom: French ambitions in the Sahara Desert during the late nineteenth century — the strange case of la mer interieure. In: Cosgrove, D., and Petts, G. (editors). Water, engineering and landscape: water control and landscape transformation in the modern period. London: Belhaven: 91114.Google Scholar
Holland, C. (editor). 1994. Farthest north. London: Robinson.Google Scholar
Joyner, C. 1992. Antarctica and international law. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Kirwan, L. 1959. Polar exploration in the last twenty years. The Geographical Magazine 32: 355364.Google Scholar
Klotz, F. 1990. America on the ice. Washington: National Defence University Press.Google Scholar
Law, P. 1983. Antarctic odyssey. Melbourne: Heinneman.Google Scholar
Logan, H. 1979. Cold commitment: the development of New Zealand's territorial role in Antarctica 1920–1960. Unpublished MA Thesis. Christchurch, New Zealand: University of Canterbury.Google Scholar
Livingstone, D. 1992. The geographical tradition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mackinder, H. 1904. The geographical pivot of history. The Geographical Journal 23: 421437.Google Scholar
Mackinder, H. 1907. On thinking imperially. In: Sadler, M. (editor). Lectures on empire. London: privately printed: 3242.Google Scholar
Mackinder, H. 1919. Democratic ideals and reality. London: Constable.Google Scholar
McCannon, J. 1995. To storm the Arctic: Soviet polar exploration and public visions of nature in the USSR, 1932–1939. Ecumene 2: 1531.Google Scholar
Mill, H.R. 1896. The International Geographical Congress. The Geographical Journal 8: 292.Google Scholar
Mill, H.R. 1901. The siege of the South Pole. London: Alston Rivers.Google Scholar
Paiva, A. 1992. Hazanas y Rivalidades en el Polo Sur. Buenos Aires: Direccion Nacional del Antarctico.Google Scholar
Pringle, T. 1991. Cold comfort: the polar landscape in English and American popular culture. Landscape Research 16: 4348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, T. 1993. The imperial archive. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Riffenburgh, B. 1994. The myth of the explorer. London: Belhaven.Google Scholar
Saunders, E. 1938. A camera in Antarctica. London: Winchester Publications.Google Scholar
Schwartz, J. 1996. The geography lesson: photographs and the construction of imagined geographies. Journal of Historical Geography 22: 1645.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scholes, R. 1954. Seventh continent. London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Scott, R. 1905. The voyage of the Discovery. 2 vols. London: John Murray.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, R. 1913. Scott's last expedition. 2 vols. London: Smith Elder.Google Scholar
Shapiro, M. 1988. The politics of representation. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Shapley, D. 1985. The seventh continent. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future.Google Scholar
Simpson-Housley, P. 1992. Antarctica: exploration, perception and metaphor. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Simpson-Housley, P., and J, Scott. 1993. Poles apart? The Terra Nova and Fram Antarctic expeditions and Judeo-Christian attitudes towards nature. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 18: 395400.Google Scholar
Smith, N., and Godwelska, A. (editors). 1994. Geography and empire. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Spufford, F. 1996. I may be some time: ice and the English imagination. London: Faber.Google Scholar
Sullivan, W. 1957. Quest for a continent. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Triggs, G. 1986. International law and Australian sovereignty in Antarctica. Sydney: Legal Books.Google Scholar
Wohl, R. 1994. A passion for wings: aviation and the western imagination 1908–1918. New Haven: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar