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"What qualities does a man need in order to become a national hero? He must be a man of action; he must be brave; he must be bold; & it is a great advantage, if not a necessity, that he should die in the attempt to reach his goal." Robert Falcon Scott was such a man. He led the British Antarctic Expedition in 1911, failed by one month to be the first to plant his country's flag at the South Pole, & died on the return trip from the Pole, just 11 miles from food & shelter. In this biography, Huxley takes the view that far from being a glamorous explorer, Scott was a reluctant hero, a complex, obstinate & reticent man. "His," says Huxley, "was the conquest of self, a feat perhaps more admirable than the conquest of the Pole"