In her new book, “Icebound,” the journalist Andrea Pitzer chronicles William Barents’s three attempts to find a mythical northeast passage to Asia. When you purchase an independently reviewed book ...

The cold, hoary legacy of polar exploration depends on outsize characters—and good books. Some chronicle legendary survivors. Ernest Shackleton found fame in 1917 by bringing his crew safely back from ...

The Dutch navigator William Barents was the first European polar explorer to achieve heroic status. Over the course of three journeys into the high Arctic during the final decade of the 16th century, ...