Roland Huntford

Roland Huntford (born 1927) is an author, principally of biographies of Polar explorers. He lives in Cambridge, and was formerly Scandinavian correspondent of The Observer, also acting as their winter sports correspondent. He was the Alistair Horne Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford.

Huntford produced important biographies of Robert Scott, Ernest Shackleton and Fridtjof Nansen. Huntford's The Last Place on Earth (originally titled Scott and Amundsen) had a tremendous impact on public interest in Polar matters because of its unflattering treatment of Scott, and an adverse comparison of Scott with the polar work of Roald Amundsen.

The historical roots for the book's structure range from Plutarch (Lives) through Alan Bullock (Hitler and Stalin). A New York Times reviewer wrote in 2001 that Huntford's 1979 work had "comprehensively demolished Scott, and it's a pity that over 20 years on, most authors are more focused on agreeing or (more often) disagreeing with [Huntford] than they are on formulating original arguments and covering new ground." [1]

But this trend continued in 2004, with a book on Scott by the British adventurer and fund raiser Sir Ranulph Fiennes A reviewer wrote that Fiennes' work "while including some unpleasant personal attacks on Huntford, was ultimately based on the idea that [Fiennes'] own experience as a polar explorer made him almost the only person who could write authoritatively on the subject." [2]

At least some later works produced by historical scholars have sought to incorporate Hunford's insights into an appreciation of Scott's achievements.[3]

Other works include The New Totalitarians (a study of Swedish Socialism), Sea of Darkness and The Sayings of Henrik Ibsen.