The Northward Course of Empire

Abstract

MR. STEFANSSON shows, with characteristic force of expression and wealth of example, that every effort to colonise the frontiers of the familiar world has been retarded by fear bred of ignorance. He regards the popular repute of the Arctic regions as a survival of the ancient shrinking of the Mediterranean peoples from cold and darkness, intensified by tales of the sufferings of explorers, which he holds to have been partly unnecessary and partly exaggerated. On the other hand, he shows that throughout the whole history of civilisation the centres of political power of the most advanced races have undergone a steady displacement northward from the neighbourhood of the tropic. He holds that this migration of the dominant races is accompanied by an increase in physical and mental vigour, and he would perhaps be inclined to agree with Richard Chenevix's bold generalisation of ninety years ago, that character is expressible as a mathematical function of latitude.

The Northward Course of Empire.

By Vilhjalmar Stefansson. Pp. xx + 274 + 8 plates. (London and Sydney: G. G. Harrap and Co. Ltd., 1922.) 7s. 6d. net.