Deep Freeze; The United States, the International Geophysical Year, and the Origins of Antarctica's Age of Science

Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2006. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xxix, [5], 494 pages. Maps. Figures. Illustrations. Terms and Abbreviations. Notes. Notes on Sources. Index. Inscribed and dated by the author on the fep. Also signed on the title page. Historian Dian Olson Belanger is the author of Enabling American Innovation (Purdue University Press, 1998) and Managing American Wildlife (University of Massachusetts Press, 1988). In Deep Freeze, Dian Olson Belanger tells the story of the pioneers who built viable communities, made vital scientific discoveries, and established Antarctica as a continent dedicated to peace and the pursuit of science, decades after the first explorers planted flags in the ice. In the tense 1950s, even as the world was locked in the Cold War, U.S. scientists, maintained by the Navy's Operation Deep Freeze, came together in Antarctica with counterparts from eleven other countries to participate in the International Geophysical Year (IGY). On July 1, 1957, they began systematic, simultaneous scientific observations of the south-polar ice and atmosphere. Their collaborative success over eighteen months inspired the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, which formalized their peaceful pursuit of scientific knowledge. Still building on the achievements of the individuals and distrustful nations thrown together by the IGY from mutually wary military, scientific, and political cultures, science prospers today and peace endures. The year 2007 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the IGY and the commencement of a new International Polar Year-a compelling moment to review what a singular enterprise accomplished in a troubled time. Belanger draws from interviews, diaries, memoirs, and official records to weave together the first thorough study of the dawn of Antarctica's scientific age. Deep Freeze offers absorbing reading for those who have ventured onto Antarctic ice and those who dream of it, as well as historians, scientists, and policy makers.