Antarctica: A History in 100 Objects

Book Description:

This stunning and powerfully relevant book tells the history of Antarctica through 100 varied and fascinating objects drawn from collections around the world.

Retracing the history of Antarctica through 100 varied and fascinating objects drawn from collections across the world, this beautiful and absorbing book is published to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the first crossing into the Antarctic Circle by James Cook aboard Resolution, on 17th January 1773. It presents a gloriously visual history of Antarctica, from Terra Incognita to the legendary expeditions of Shackleton and Scott, to the frontline of climate change.

One of the wildest and most beautiful places on the planet, Antarctica has no indigenous population or proprietor. Its awe-inspiring landscapes – unknown until just two centuries ago – have been the backdrop to feats of human endurance and tragedy, scientific discovery, and environmental research. Sourced from polar institutions and collections around the world, the objects that tell the story of this remarkable continent range from the iconic to the exotic, from the refreshingly mundane to the indispensable:

- snow goggles adopted from Inuit technology by Amundsen
- the lifeboat used by Shackleton and his crew
- a bust of Lenin installed by the 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition
- the Polar Star aircraft used in the first trans-Antarctic flight
- a sealing club made from the penis bone of an elephant seal
- the frozen beard as a symbol of Antarctic heroism and masculinity
- ice cores containing up to 800,000 years of climate history

This stunning book is both endlessly fascinating and a powerful demonstration of the extent to which Antarctic history is human history, and human future too.

Author Bio:

Daniella McCahey's research attempts to connect the Antarctic continent, seas, and atmosphere to themes in modern world history. Her current book project examines the development of professional science programs in the Falkland Islands and Ross Dependencies in the 1950s and 1960s, a period characterized by the International Geophysical Year, the Cold War, and the decline of the British Empire. This book examines both how external British and New Zealand policy decisions impacted the way that geophysical sciences were conducted on site in the Antarctic, and the unique ways in which scientists relied on behavioral and technological adaptations to conduct research effectively in extreme environments. She is a co-author of A History of Antarctica in 100 Objects, a global history of human engagement with Antarctica through the study of material objects, scheduled to be published by Bloomsbury Publishing in the Fall of 2022. Dr. McCahey is also working on several smaller projects related to polar history including the ideation of Antarctica as a masculine space, the histories of volcanology and botany in Antarctica, continental drift and nationalism in the Southern Hemisphere, and the history of whaling in the Southern Ocean.

Dr. McCahey earned her BA in Political Science at Northwestern University (2009), her MA in History of Science at the University of Oklahoma (2012), and her PhD in History at the University of California, Irvine (2018). Her research has been supported by numerous organizations including the National Science Foundation, the Royal Society of New Zealand, and the American Institute of Physics. She has presented her work in conferences around the world and published in academic journals, scholarly edited volumes, and popular venues, such as the LA Times Review of Books and The Conversation. Dr. McCahey is also interested in public history and regularly lends her expertise on various aspects of polar history to museums around the world. Before joining Texas Tech, she was a lecturer on the History of Science at the University of Idaho.

At Texas Tech, Dr. McCahey teaches the Western Civilization survey and offers classes in the history of science and modern British and European history.