With a grin, Amundsen went to a sledge and lifted out the Norwegian flag. "Come," he said to his friends, "we must put it up together."

It was December 11, 1911. The little group of explorers was the first to reach the South Pole. It was a great and solemn moment. Yet Amundsen gave a sigh. All his life, from childhood on, he had wanted to travel to the North Pole. Peary had beaten him there. So here he was instead, at the other end of the world.

Reaching the South Pole was only one of Amundsen's many feats. He was the first to navigate the Northwest Passage, and with an American, Lincoln Ellsworth, the first to map the North Polar Seas from the air. Courageous, determined, indomitable, Amundsen was at his best in an emergency. Aground on an Arctic rock, downed on the ice in a wrecked plane, Amundsen never despaired. Instead he set to work immediately to save his expedition. Roald Amundsen was one of the world's bravest explorers.

From the dust jacket