The news at the ends of the Earth: the print culture of polar exploration

摘要

The news at the ends of the Earth is a timely and engaging exploration of the written ephemera created and circulated during American and European expeditions to the polar regions between 1818 and 1914. The material, such as periodicals, playbills and messages, can be described as 'ecomedia', having originated and circulated in extreme environments. Broad in its temporal scope, deeply researched and making use of rich archival collections (the author travelled to over 30 archival repositories in five countries during her research for this book), Blum studies both the material history of the artefacts as well as their textual content, prompting the reader to consider 'what genre of writing, what communication medium, emerges from and is demanded by the Anthropocene?' (5-6). By linking the extremity of the polar regions, and the associated response of expedition members, to the current climate crisis, she argues that we can find 'unexpected resources for futurity in forms of polar evanescence' (7).