Antarctica - David McGonigal

This is the story of Antarctica, the last great wilderness on earth. Isolated by ice, wind and the wild seas of the Southern Ocean, it is the world's most pristine environment, a region of spectacular natural beauty that is home, despite extreme weather conditions, to an astonishing diversity of wildlife. Written by polar experts and packed with maps and photographs, Antarctica journeys through the continent's landscape, ecology and history. It introduces the penguins, whales, seals and many other species that have perfected techniques of survival here, and explains the threat that global warming poses to their unique habitats.

It also celebrates human endurance in a harsh environment, from the contemporary scientists snowed into their research stations to the heroic but often tragic explorers of the past, such as Amundsen, who reached the Pole in 1911, Scott, who perished in the attempt, and Shackleton, who survived months on the ice without suitable clothing or equipment. For travellers to Antarctica and for those who will never reach this most inaccessible of continents, hundreds of photographs capture an entrancing landscape of peaks, glaciers, icebergs and wind-carved snow sculptures, as well as penguin colonies, seal wallows and the historical sites that have been literally frozen in time.