Host joining us on booktv as part of our preview of some of the books coming out in 2014 is a familiar face and name to booktv viewers. Hampton sides. Mr. Sites you write about a lot of different topics. How do you pick your topics . Guest i think i have a case of historical add. I jump around in different time periods. Its all American History but you know i am done with world war ii and i have moved on to manifest destiny and the American West or the assassination of Martin Luther king. This particular story thats coming out is about early american exploration into the arctic that is pretty of skier now and it is not extremely wellknown in his time but not wellknown now. How i picked these topics is mainly im looking for great characters and a great story. This one kind of had all the elements. I knew as soon as they ran into the story of the uss jeannette this was a good fit for me. I spent three and a half years doing the research for the book going to the Russian Arctic following the footpath and the footsteps of the commander George Delong and i have a ball doing this book. Host first of all how did you find a a story in what year are we talking about . Guest the exploration took place in 1949. Big lots in the eyes interested for two years before the ship was crushed by the ice and sank. So it at this point becomes a story of survival and trying to get to the nearest landmass which was siberia. They made landfall in 1881 and finally made it home in 1882. Host how did you find this story . Guest i actually found the story by virtue of doing another story for National Geographic magazine about and explore who and explore it was a norwegian guy trying to duplicate this expedition, this jeannette expedition that duplicated in a different kind of boat design differently to withstand the ice better. What was the jeannette expedition . I did a shift here because as a historian and as an american and someone who fancies himself as a bit of an aficionado of expiration narratives i came out of the background of working for outside magazine for years and years i thought i never heard of this thing the jeannette expedition. Its completely obscure today and along the commander i think if he think if you pulled one of the people you might get one person who has heard of him. Historians are constantly looking for the stories that were consequential in their time but are kind of exterior and this fit perfectly. Host who is George Washington to long . Guest George Washington delong was the commander of the uss jeannette. He was very ambitious and made a name for himself with an earlier exploration into greenland. He had been able to convince the playboy publisher of the New York Herald tribune, excuse me the New York Herald who leaders become Herald Tribune to fund this expedition. James Gordon Bennett the publisher of this newspaper has sent stanley to africa to find livingstone. This had been an unarmed success. The newspaper was looking for an encore to that so they decided to fund this expedition even though it was staffed by officers of the u. S. Navy. It became one of the First Official american attempts on the north pole. We are talking about the early days way before shackleton and terry and so forth. The last expedition than ever to the sale to the north pole. I sort of underscore that. The idea was that if you bust through a little of the i see will eventually meet this we are seeing that everyone seemed to believe them. The idea that there was a warmonger based out there. But it does get to it there would be smooth sailing to the north pole. That is what this expedition was seeking to find with the open polar sea. It doesnt exist. It might exist in because of Climate Change but it didnt exist in 1880s. Host what was the fascination with the north pole then . Guest people were obsessed with this idea that there were certain places left, just a few places that have never been touched by man. One of the people i quote in the book talks about how a man will become obsessed with the idea that there is a room perhaps in his attic that he cant get to. Drives you mad and now we know that theres really not much out there. Its just a shifting slab of ice and back then there were these theories that there was a lost civilization up there. There were for texas or various polls that lead down into subterranean cavities of the earth. This idea of an open polar sea. There was a lot of mythology about what might be up there. It drove people crazy not to know. Host in that era, what was it like undertaking an expedition like that . Guest well, this was shortly after the civil war. Emerging from that in trying to leave its imprint on the world in some way and to compete with european powers that had done really all the exploration at that point. So in order to undertake an expedition like this it took a certain amount of money and organization. The navy had to become involved because of their explorations have been conducted and had shown what happens when you go into the arctic. It has to be very well organized or you get cam in the bosom or scurvy and all the classics basically. This expedition was very well organized and they avoided all three of those things. No scurvy, no cannibalism and no mutiny. However the navy at this time, the u. S. Navy was in its infancy and was really weak and quite poor. So they have to find a sponsor, someone to pay for it. That is why this is this unique hybrid of being a u. S. Navy expedition paid for by a newspaper publisher for a great story. And thats something now that i think we find to be unorthodox but it made perfect sense of the 1880s. Host was the jeannette built specifically for this mission . Guest the jeannette was actually british boat known as the pandora but Gordon Bennett bought it. He thought it was terribly bad luck to have a boat named the pandora like pandoras box the worlds evils. To send a ship into the arctic so he named it after his sister jeanette. It was declared an official navy but the uss jeannette and then it was massively reinforced for the ice in San Francisco by various engineers and the u. S. Navy. They knew they were going to reach eyes. They just didnt think they could churn through it and a couple of months until they could reach this open polar sea. They didnt have any idea what would really happen which was it wouldnt be a few months. It was two years of absolute crushing pressure on this vessel. Even though it was massively reinforced with the ice it eventually sitcoms. It sang to the bottom of the arctic ocean leaving 33 men and their dogs out on the ice cap to fend for themselves. Host how wellknown was the story at the time . Guest at the time frontpage news. All the explorers are household names. It was serialized in the papers and it wasnt just the vessel itself. Also when it became lost after two years other of their vessels were sent north to find it. So wave after wave of more calamity. Almost invariably you send a ship to the arctic and this time period something bad is going to happen. All of this generates more stories and more copy. After the survivors came home, bestselling books. The journals of