{"id":10500,"date":"2025-05-24T11:36:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T09:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/?p=10500"},"modified":"2025-09-12T11:58:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T09:58:41","slug":"der-stille-held-tom-crean-michael-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/2025\/05\/an_unsung_hero_tom_crean-michael-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean \u2022 Michael Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

After finishing No Man\u2019s Land<\/a>, I was fully in adventure mode and craving another journey to Antarctica. I\u2019d come across An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean<\/em> in the mare list<\/a> quite a while ago and finally picked it up to set off on my next trip to the South Pole. Whether Tom Crean\u2019s adventures are as gripping as the tales in No Man\u2019s Land<\/em>\u2014that\u2019s what I\u2019ll tell you today.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Tom Crean was born in Ireland in 1877 and was a polar explorer who, in the early twentieth century, took part in three expeditions to Antarctica. This book traces his life from childhood through his dramatic expeditions and on into his later years. Tom himself never kept a diary and wasn\u2019t much of a letter writer, but thanks to his feats of heroism and the fact that he was a superb companion, he\u2019s mentioned in many of his comrades\u2019 accounts. Michael Smith has researched the material extremely well and gathered a wealth of information from numerous sources\u2014journals, travel reports, and interviews with Crean\u2019s descendants. On that basis, he follows Crean\u2019s life.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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I\u2019ve read several books about daring journeys to the poles\u2014and they\u2019re all genuinely thrilling. Hampton Sides\u2019s In the Kingdom of Ice<\/em><\/a> and Adwin de Kluyver\u2019s No Man\u2019s Land<\/em><\/a> are similarly structured. They\u2019re nonfiction, but because the adventures\u2014with all their hardships and dangers\u2014are retold, a highly compelling narrative emerges, much like a superb documentary. As a reader, you plunge into the inhospitable, perilous world of the eternal ice, and it\u2019s sometimes hard to fathom what these men endured.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Michael Smith vividly conveys how the polar travelers battled the elements: temperatures down to \u201360\u00b0C in their tents and sleeping bags; four months of darkness; hauling heavy sledges laden with gear across the ice; frostbite; blizzards; and austere rations\u2014because everything had to be hauled by human power. And Tom Crean stood out everywhere\u2014not only physically but mentally, achieving feats that are hard to imagine today. He narrowly escaped death multiple times, and some of his comrades never returned alive from that unforgiving region.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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The most famous expedition Tom Crean joined was that of the Briton Scott, who aimed to be the first person to reach the South Pole. At the last moment, however, the Norwegian explorer Amundsen beat him to it. The hazardous journey\u2014and especially the perilous return from the Pole\u2014is recounted in great detail here, and I devoured those chapters. It\u2019s utterly gripping to read how the men fought for survival, what hardships they defied, and how grueling the venture was. Even though this is nonfiction, it reads like a suspense novel.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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You can feel how carefully and thoroughly Michael Smith researched. The appendix includes extensive source notes. I especially liked the photographs reproduced in the book, which provide a visual impression, as well as the maps that let you follow the routes. It\u2019s all superbly assembled\u2014there\u2019s nothing I\u2019d change. It\u2019s simply well done.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I also really liked the book\u2019s design. The jacket photo of Tom Crean is perfectly chosen and wonderfully atmospheric\u2014the weathered face, pipe in mouth, and that piercing gaze. The paper choice is, as ever with mare, excellent; the typography and image reproduction are first-rate. The blue ribbon marker is a lovely finishing touch. The case itself is plain board\u2014this isn\u2019t marketed as a de luxe edition (which, of course, I always secretly hope for). All told, it\u2019s the reliably high mare quality I\u2019ve appreciated for years.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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The author, Michael Smith\u2014born in London in 1946\u2014was a journalist who, after his career, turned to writing about Arctic and Antarctic exploration. He\u2019s received multiple awards for his books. Anyone who picks up this volume will quickly see why: he makes the Golden Age of Antarctic exploration vivid and immediate.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Late last year another very similar book appeared, about Alfred Wegener<\/a>, who also took part in several expeditions. And this autumn The Dreamed North<\/em><\/a> will be published\u2014like No Man\u2019s Land<\/em>, it\u2019s by Adwin de Kluyver. So there\u2019s plenty more reading of this kind ahead, and I\u2019ll definitely be picking up both.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Conclusion:<\/strong> Tom Crean\u2019s adventures are exciting and fascinating, and following his life\u2014reading about his polar journeys\u2014is pure pleasure. Smith captures the dramatic moments as well as the triumphs and setbacks, and how narrowly the men escaped death. Scott\u2019s push to the South Pole, Shackleton\u2019s attempt to cross Antarctica, winters locked in pack ice, the grind of hauling loads across the ice desert, hostile nature, blizzards in biting cold\u2014all of it is rendered in a way that puts you right there and lets you immerse yourself in the enthralling Golden Age of Antarctic exploration. I tore through this book and can only recommend it to anyone who loves tales of adventure and remarkable expeditions to remote places.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Book information:<\/strong> An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean<\/em> \u2022 Michael Smith \u2022 mare Verlag \u2022 464 pages \u2022 ISBN 9783866486577<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Der<\/a><\/figure>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After finishing No Man\u2019s Land, I was fully in adventure mode and craving another journey to Antarctica. I\u2019d come across An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean in the mare list quite a while ago and finally picked it up to set off on my next trip to the South Pole. Whether Tom Crean\u2019s adventures are as … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean \u2022 Michael Smith”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"Der stille Held Tom Crean \u2022 Michael Smith - lesestunden","description":"Nach meiner Lekt\u00fcre von Niemandsland war ich voll im Abenteuermodus und hatte einfach Lust auf ein weiteres Abenteuer in der Antarktis. Im mare Programm bin ich"},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20,48],"tags":[295,292,301,298,300,299,302,297],"class_list":["post-10500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","category-nonfiction","tag-adventure","tag-antarctica","tag-endurance","tag-michael-smith","tag-niemandsland","tag-polarreisender","tag-suedpol","tag-tom-crean"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/tom_crean_1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11064,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10500\/revisions\/11064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}