Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 234 pages with index. A work of refreshing originality and vivid appeal, Red Arctic tells the story of Stalinist Russia's massive campaign to explore and develop its Northern territories during the 1930s. Author John McCannon recounts the dramatic stories of the polar expeditions--conducted by foot, ship, and plane--that were the pride of Stalinist Russia, in order to expose the reality behind them: chaotic blunders, bureaucratic competition, and the eventual rise of the Gulag as the dominant force in the North. Red Arctic also traces the development of the polar-based popular culture of the decade, making use of memoirs, films, radio broadcasts, children's books, and cultural ephemera ranging from placards to postage stamps to show how Russia's "Arctic Myth" became an integral part of the overall socialist-realist aesthetic that animated Stalinist culture throughout the 1930s. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harper and Brothers, 1st, 1869, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, maroon cloth with beveled edges. Engraved frontispiece with tissue guard and profusely illustrated throughout with 163 wood-engravings. The author of several other scientific works here gives a description of the Arctic and Antarctic regions of the globe in both a popular and scientific way. He gives a succinct history of the several polar expeditions, American and European. Covers with edge wear and fraying to spine, gilt blindstamped scene of dog sled on front cover, gilt kayak scene and lettering on spine faded. Interior of book very good, no markings.