“This book provides insight into the life of José Mara Sobral, an Under-Lieutenant in the Argentine Navy, as well as his participation in Otto Nordenskjold’s Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1903. It features the diary that Sobral kept, which had never been published before.
This biography focuses on Sobral’s reflections on the mission, his position within it, the science being discovered, and the geopolitical climate he found himself in. The reader also understands the state of science at the time, the exploration of Antarctica, and the cultural and political issues of the day.
The critical and contextual analysis that the author provides of the diary explains more about Sobral and his role in Argentina, Antarctica, as well as in science and history. This provides the framework to depict the world in which Sobral lived and worked as well as his expedition and accomplishments, and it paints a detailed picture of Sobral as an individual. The purpose of this book is to explain the context of Sobral’s writings, the significance of the events he described in his diary entries, and the way in which all of these events tied into the progression of history and the discovery of new scientific information.”
