The Shameless Diary of an Explorer a Story of Failure on Mt. McKinley
- List Price: $14.95
- Binding: Paperback
- Publisher: Random House Inc
- Publish date: 09/01/2001
Description:
In 1903, aspiring journalist Robert Dunn joined an expedition attempting the first ascent of Mt. McKinley, the highest mountain in North America. Led by explorer Frederick Cook (who would later win infamy for faking the discovery of the North Pole), the expedition failed to climb McKinley, but it did circumnavigate the great peak -- an admirable feat not repeated until 1978. The expedition also spawned a book unique in the literature of exploration: Dunn's frank, sardonic, no-holds-barred look at day-to-day existence on an Alaskan expedition.
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Before Dunn, most expedition accounts were sanitized and expurgated of anything unflattering. Dunn, a protege of Lincoln Steffens, the turn-of-the-century muckraker, reported a journey rife with interpersonal conflict, missed opportunity, incompetence, privation, and danger. By showing men reduced to their rawest state, the young journalist produced a compelling, insightful, amusing book that disturbed and riveted his contemporaries.
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