About the Author

Lisle A. Rose served in the U.S. Navy from 1954 to 1957 and in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs from 1978 to 1989. Besides serving as an expert commentator about Byrd for A&E's Biography series and PBS's American Experience, he is author of eleven previous books, including Assault on Eternity: Richard E. Byrd and the Exploration of Antarctica, 1946-47 and, most recently, the three-volume Power at Sea (University of Missouri Press). He lives in Edmonds, Washington.

Reviews

"Explorer is a superb modern biography of Rear Admiral Richard Byrd and his exploits in the coldest places on earth. Lisle Rose has captured Byrd's sense of adventure and egotism, chivalry and charlatanism, public hucksterism, and private power-brokering. Well-researched, superbly reasoned, and engagingly written, Explorer is an important addition to the literature of polar exploration."--Roger Launius, author of Frontiers of Space Exploration and editor of Innovation and the Development of Flight

"Rose has given us fascinating accounts of Byrd's early Arctic flying, the controversial North and South Pole flights, and the little remembered transatlantic flight of 1927. He has dug up a great amount of new information on the First and Second Byrd Antarctic Expeditions, as well as the U.S. Navy's Operation Deep Freeze in the late fifties. He tells the astounding story of Byrd's bizarre attempt to spend the Antarctic winter by himself, 123 miles south of Little America where his men fought among themselves, eventually launching a harrowing rescue of their stranded leader. All told, this remarkable book is the definitive biography of Richard E. Byrd."--John C. Behrendt, author of Innocents on the Ice: A Memoir of Antarctic Exploration, 1957 and The Ninth Circle: A Memoir of Life and Death in Antarctica, 1960-1962

"Thoroughly researched, balanced in interpretation, and very readable, Lisle Rose's biography of Admiral Richard Byrd, the controversial but accomplished polar explorer and leader, will stand prominently in the literature of biography, American history, and polar exploration. It sets a very high standard for any future study of the man who was called "the Mayor of Antarctica." General readers will enjoy the book and scholars will need to cite it."--Raimund E. Goerler, editor of To the Pole: The Diary and Notebook of Richard E. Byrd