Nils Uddenberg’s biography traces Nordenskiöld—scientist, explorer, and political rebel—who conquered the Northeast Passage and embodied restless nineteenth-century ambition and optimism.
National hero. Scientist. Adventurer and explorer. Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld is the perfect image of these epithets. Yet he was also a liberal and rebellious agitator who was forced to leave his homeland of Finland after conflict with the Russian authorities.
Nordenskiöld achieved international fame when, aboard the ship Vega, he became the first to navigate the Northeast Passage, after a winter trapped in ice along Siberia's northeastern coast. Nils Uddenberg's book, the first major biography of Nordenskiöld, addresses all this and more. It recounts his numerous Arctic expeditions, his scientific work and political engagements, his achievements and missteps, his family and personal relationships.
The book also situates his life within the dynamic intellectual climate of the nineteenth century, marked by discoveries such as the theory of the Ice Age and Darwin's theory of evolution. Nordenskiöld emerges as a man in constant motion, the world before him—a restless optimist who accomplished what many considered impossible.