Beyond Men and Machines: New Contributions to the History of Polar Exploration

This essay is a review of the recent literature on polar exploration, focusing closely on two books, S.A. Andrée: The Beginning of Polar Aviation, 1895–1897, by Günther Sollinger, and The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture, by Michael F. Robinson. While Robinson uses the public perception of American Arctic explorations to illuminate developments in the political and cultural history of the United States, Sollinger focuses on a single Arctic explorer, the Swede Salomon August Andrée, who tried to reach the North Pole by balloon in 1897. While the essay judges both books to be worthwhile contributions to the literature on polar exploration, it points out the fundamentally conservative approach of both studies, which reflects the field as a whole. Therefore, the essay concludes by calling for scholars of polar exploration to broaden their approach conceptually by engaging more actively with the literature in the history of travel and the history of technology.