In Joseph Conrad’sHeart of Darkness,Marlow, while writing about Africa, brings in an unexpected reference to the North Pole:

Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that way) I would put my finger on it and say, “When I grow up I will go there....

On his return from the North Pole in 1909, explorer Robert Peary at his first opportunity sent messages to announce his success. Peary’s cables went to theNew York Times,to the Associated Press, to the secretary of the Peary Arctic Club, and the following to President William Howard Taft:

HAVE HONOR TO PLACE NORTH POLE AT YOUR DISPOSAL.¹

The president wired Peary in reply:

THANKS FOR YOUR GENEROUS OFFER. I DO NOT KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I COULD DO WITH IT. I CONGRATULATE YOU SINCERELY ON HAVING ACHIEVED, AFTER THE GREATEST EFFORT, THE OBJECT OF YOUR TRIP, AND I SINCERELY...

Theorists of nationalism such as Benedict Anderson argue that the spread of print culture during the early 1800s in Europe was central to constituting new national identities.¹ As Anderson points out, the modernity of nationalism can be seen in the peculiar way that novels, newspapers, and magazines provided a common language that enabled people to form collective identities. Though Anderson’s theory of nationalism is helpful in connecting the narrative fascination of the popular media to the constitution of national imaginations, his ideas do not account for the way that this process is inflected by distinct gender representations that are peculiar...

Much ofNational Geographic’shistory and discourse turns on the question of “whiteness” as an unmarked category. Now, white values still inform the cultural practices and policies of institutions such as theNational Geographic.Though white power and dominance is hard to grasp, one of the ways it makes itself felt is by the way white institutions pass themselves off as embodied in the normal. According to cultural critic Coco Fusco:

Racial identities are not only black, Latino, Asian, Native American and so on; they are also white. To ignore white ethnicity is to redouble its hegemony by naturalizing it....

The British were the losers in the race to the South Pole. Roald Amundsen of Norway reached the pole in 1911, one month ahead of the hapless Capt. Robert Falcon Scott. Not only did the British team fail to reach the pole first, but Scott and his four men died of hunger and cold on their way back. After completing nearly seven-eighths of the distance they encountered a blizzard and, unable to reach their food depot just 11 miles away, died in their tent from a combination of frostbite, sickness, and starvation. This was no ordinary failure, to be covered...