ULTIMA THULE: Explorers and Natives in the Polar North

Striving to be the ultimate coffee-table book on the Arctic; its white explorers; and the Inuits, the northernmost native people on Earth, this work succeeds grandly. With its breathtaking illustrations, extensive sidebars (largely diary entries, historical documents and ethnographic material) and a condensed history of Arctic exploration and Inuit life, it's hard to imagine anything better. It's also hard to imagine anything bigger (10"×14"), heavier (over six pounds) or more expensive ($75), a perfect example of what CD-ROMs were supposed to replace. French explorer and geographer Malaurie became an ethnographer of the Inuit people after his extended stay in the early 1950s, where he witnessed and then exposed the establishment of a secret American nuclear base in the Inuit capital of Thule, which devastated the tiny native population. Here, he traces the history of despoliation, beginning with the first Arctic explorer to encounter the Inuit (Captain Ross in 1818) and ending with himself and the revival of Inuit life. Each chapter in between is devoted to Arctic explorers and their expeditions in chronological order. Malaurie's version of anthropology reverses the roles of savage and civilized, and his historical accounts of Arctic expeditions' murder, mutiny and mysticism are always fascinatingly told in surprisingly clear and comprehensible prose. Period photographs, engravings, artifacts, maps and drawings help demystify the unknown Arctic. (Feb.)