The Dream of the North
The Dream of the North: A Cultural History to 1920 by Peter Fjågesund Rodopi, 2014, $175 Reviewed by Russell A. Potter Every few years, a book comes out which offers -- or purports to offer -- a sweeping overview of the history of Arctic exploration and its historical significance. Most, however, take the explorers' accounts at face value, and are essentially elegant coffee-table books for armchair enthusiasts. When I first saw the title of this book, though encouraged by the subtitle "a cultural history," I was a bit skeptical -- how could any book, especially one just over five hundred and fifty pages in length, cover such a period, and cover it well? Peter Fjågesund manages this feat, and several others along the way: unlike other recent cultural histories, which -- rejecting the old grand narratives -- have cobbled together in their place a rather lumpy "new North" out of Scandinavian mythology, wandering antiquarians, and stuffed polar bears, Fjågesund is n...