Publisher edition artwork
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
Alfred Lansing · First published 1959
Twenty-eight men, a crushed ship, and the finest leadership case study ever recorded.
Essential
Easy · Short — around 280 pages
Why Read It?
It is the best book on leadership disguised as the best book on ice.
What It's About
The 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, from the loss of the Endurance to the rescue of every member of the crew.
Why It Matters
It is the canonical survival narrative, taught in business schools and military academies alike, and none of the retellings improve on Lansing.
The Review
Lansing interviewed the surviving crew and read their diaries, and then had the good sense to get out of the way. The result is plain, relentless and completely gripping: the ship is crushed, the ice drifts, the boat journey to South Georgia takes place in a twenty-two-foot whaler across the worst sea on earth, and every man comes home.
Shackleton's genius was social, not nautical. He managed morale like a resource, kept the malcontents in his own tent, and never once let the men see him calculate the odds.
Best Read
Winter, indoors, gratefully.
Three Things You'll Take From It
- 01
A leader's chief output is other people's morale.
- 02
Abandon the objective early; abandon the people never.
- 03
Routine is what holds a group together when the plan is gone.
Better Read or Heard?
Simon Prebble's narration is superb — one of the better audiobooks in print.
If You Like This…
The Worst Journey in the World — Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Scott's expedition, from inside.
Find it on AmazonArabian Sands — Wilfred Thesiger
The opposite climate, the same character.
Find it on Amazon
The Edition to Own
The Basic Books reissue with the Frank Hurley photographs is the edition to buy.
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