Resolute af Martin W. Sandler (Bog)

Few know that the president’s desk in the Oval Office plays a part in one of the world’s most extraordinary sagas; in Resolute, noted historian Martin Sandler brings the story to light.

After Sir John Franklin and his ships disappeared in the Arctic while seeking the Northwest Passage, 39 rescue missions were launched, including one by the Resolute, the Royal Navy’s finest vessel. In 1854, it became locked in the ice and was abandoned. A year later, a Connecticut whaling ship discovered it drifting 1,200 miles away, a 600-ton ghost ship. The whalers boarded the Resolute and steered it through a ferocious hurricane back to Connecticut. The US government re-outfitted the ship and returned it to Queen Victoria, who, in 1879, had its best timbers made into a desk for President Rutherford B. Hayes—a desk still in use today. Rare photographs, paintings, engravings, and maps illustrate the book throughout. This edition is updated with a new chapter on the discovery of Franklin’s ships, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, in 2014 and 2016 in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

This legendary maritime epic is perfect for fans of David Grann’s The Wager and Hampton Sides’s The Wide Wide Sea.

Forfatter: Martin W. Sandler

Sprog: Engelsk

Antal sider: 358

Forlag: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.

Udgivelsesår: 2006

Almost everyone knows the photo of John F. Kennedy, Jr. as a young boy, peering out from under his father's desk in the Oval Office. But few realize that the desk itself plays a part in one of the world's most extraordinary mysteries--a dramatic tale that has never before been told in its full scope.

Titel: Resolute af Martin W. Sandler (Bog)

Genre: Historisk

Sammendrag: By 1845, Europeans had been seeking the fabled Northwest Passage—a short, safe route to Asia through the Arctic—for four hundred years. In Britain, it had become a national obsession. Sir John Franklin, the most revered British naval explorer, was Britain's great hope to claim the prize. It did not turn out as planned. Resolute is the epic story of the frenzied search for this Holy Grail of trade routes, the disappearance of Franklin and his 128 men, and the longest, largest—and in the end, most controversial—search-and-rescue mission ever organized. It is also the harrowing tale of a grand ship abandoned during one of the search expeditions, its discovery miles away, and its surprising reincarnation as a cultural icon still in use today—the desk of the president of the United States.

Type: Hardcover