![]() ![]() Many died in their attempts to discover new places or new routes. But as Fleming repeatedly shows, very few of the actual explorers escaped unscathed. Naval officers needed new challenges, and exploring the path of the Niger River or searching for the Northwest Passage provided them. ![]() His role was that of true administrator, taking the decisions from his political superiors and making them work in the real world. Fleming makes it clear that Barrow was not necessarily the most likeable of men, but was a driving force in pushing Britain into the far corners of the globe.īarrow served as Second Secretary from 1804 to 1845. It is the explorers who stole Barrow's thunder in his own time and do it again in this work. But as Fleming himself notes "Barrow inevitably plays second fiddle to his explorers" (p. ![]() ![]() Fergus Fleming's Barrow's Boys combines the narrative appeal of the best of the adventure books with the historical context required by scholars in his story of John Barrow, Great Britain's Second Secretary to the Admiralty during the first half of the 19th century.įleming's work is an attempt to focus attention on Barrow's crucial role in the exploration of uncharted portions of the world by British explorers. Reviewed by Kathy Gorman (Minnesota State Uuniversity, Mankato)Īdventure and exploration books have routinely topped the bestseller list since the 1997 appearance of Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. Barrow's Boys: A Stirring Story of Daring, Fortitude, and Outright Lunacy. ![]()
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