SOURCE: "Going to Extremes," in The New York Times Book Review, November 20, 1988, pp. 1, 44-5.

In the following review, Huntford provides an overview of Breton's The Arctic Grail, praising it as a "highly readable compendium of northern exploration."

The view from space has made familiar the image of the world; but within living memory, its surface was still imperfectly known. The polar regions were the last great blanks upon the map, and the 19th century was haunted by the drive to fill them in. Since the Arctic was more accessible, that is where attempts were concentrated first. These events coalesce into an intricate saga which it is the purpose of this book to relate.

Pierre Berton, a Canadian historian and the author of The Mysterious North, takes the quest for the North Pole and the Northwest Passage as a theme to unify the tale of Arctic exploration from the...