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LANDS THAT HOLD ONE SPELLBOUND: A STORY OF EAST GREENLAND.

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LANDS THAT HOLD ONE SPELLBOUND: A STORY OF EAST GREENLAND. By SPENCER APOLLONIO. Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press, 2008. Co-published with the Arctic Institute of North America. ISBN 978-1-55238-240-0. Northern Lights Series, No. 11. xx + 322 p., maps, b&w illus., glossary, bib. Soft-bound. Cdn$34.95.

The author of this work introduces it as "an informal history of East Greenland" (p. ix). To enjoy this volume, which is well put together and divided into six more or less chronological chapters, the reader will need to ignore the several misconceptions that are embodied in the early pages of this volume (p. ix-xx).

The claim by the author that "its history has never been told" (p. ix) and by the publishers that this volume is the "only known overview of the history of this region" is somewhat inaccurate. Even discounting the numerous and varied histories of exploration in Danish handbooks and atlases, there are many accounts in English dealing with the parts of the region that comprise Apollonio's expanded definition of "East Greenland." Apollonio unfortunately complicates understanding of his volume by ignoring the established geographical divisions of Greenland (Fig. 1), and has extended his "East Greenland" or "east coast of Greenland" northwards to Kap Morris Jesup (p. xi). Peary Land features prominently in several chapters in this volume, but is geographically in North Greenland.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The history of East Greenland cannot be said to have been "neglected, overlooked, ignored" as Apollonio claims (p. ix); this generalization is manifestly untrue in Denmark, where there is an abiding interest in and demand for books about East Greenland. Briefly naming just a few of the works in English that describe exploration, Borge Fristrup's impressive volume The Greenland Ice Cap (1966) describes all the early ice sheet crossings, as well as the later detailed work of the Expeditions Polaires Francaises under the leadership of Paul-Emile Victor; and...

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