Resumo de The Last Imaginary Place

The Last Imaginary Place: A Human History of the Arctic World
by McGhee, Robert
Published by Key Porter books, Canada; and Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2005
ISBM: 10:0-18-518368-1

Renowned archeologist, Robert McGhee is Curator of Archeology at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. He has dedicated his career to exploring and explaining the history of the Canadian North, particularly as it has involved its human inhabitants. Dr. McGhee has shared his knowledge in over 120 published articles, 14 books, 4 videos and several award-winning exhibits. He has personally conducted over 20 expeditions into the Canadian Arctic. In 2000, he was the recipient of the Massey Medal of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Canada?s highest award for excellence in the geographical sciences. In 2004 he received the Clio award for northern Canadian history.

By combining anthropology, history, and personal memoirs, Dr. McGhee?s The Last Imaginary Place successfully dispels traditional romanticized notions of the Arctic as a world apart, exotic and isolated, and instead reveals a land far more fascinating than we had imagined. Most important, McGhee offers far more coverage of the native peoples of the Arctic, societies that other historians have usually neglected. Flavored by his personal experiences and reflections accumulated in over thirty years of work and travel in the region, Dr. McGhee presents a comprehensive and, enlightening look at one of the most culturally rich and fascinating areas of the world and successfully merges and integrates it with the rest of the world. As stated by Sherrill Grace, Canadian author and Professor of English at the University of British Columbia: ?McGhee makes us care about this precious part of the world by putting color, flesh, diversity and particularity back into a complex history and multifaceted human geography that has often been neglected?.?

Those who are interested in the Cook/Peary controversy concerning the first attainment of the North Pole will find McGhee?s appraisal of this issue most interesting and revealing. After reviewing the claims of both explorers, McGhee continues: ?{Peary} immediately set out on a life-long campaign to discredit t Cook and everything he had claimed to accomplish. A vicious propaganda campaign financed by the National Geographic Society and Peary?s other wealthy backers successfully destroyed Cook?s claim as well as his life. Yet no amount of money was able to bury the questions surrounding Peary?s own claim to have reached the Pole in the spring of 1909??It is clear that Peary could not have attained the Pole, and that he was a liar as well as a megalomaniac. Yet when one strips away the false testimony and the biased judgments that emanated from Peary and his supporters, there is no reason to believe that Cook could not have accomplished what he claimed??His small and lightly supplied expeditions may have seemed impossible in the early twentieth century, but similar trips have since been achieved by others with fewer resources??Frederick Cook remains the most perceptive as well as the most vilified of polar explorers..?.Cook had made a discovery that no amount of humiliation could take from him and one that only the most fortunate and observant of Arctic explorers ever learned.? This is but one instance in this 296-page book where McGhee demonstrates his ability to express himself in a ?lay it on the line - no holds barred? manner.

The Last Imaginary Place is well written, easy to read, well indexed, and supplemented with 37 black-and-white illustrations, 31 color photographs and nine maps. There is also a supplement that lists and abstracts relevant additional references. The Last Imaginary Place should find its way to the bookshelves of all lovers of the Arctic

Ralph M. Myerson, MD
Clinical Professor of Medicine
Drexel University School of Medicine
Philadelphia, Pa

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