In the late summer of 1914, the celebrated Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven set sail on an expedition in the South Atlantic Ocean. These daring and adventurous men were on a quest to claim one of the few remaining prizes in the Heroic Age of Exploration: First to cross the South Pole on foot. What they discovered instead was the fierce, inexorable laws of nature, the limits of their power, and the enduring influence of Shackleton’s heroic leadership.