Antarctica is the world's coldest, windiest, driest, wildest, cleanest, emptiest and quietest continent. Humans have never been more than visitors there, and only since the last century. Antarctica is the one place on our planet where international co-operation has succeeded - so far. But the Antarctica Treaty is due for renegotiation and the continents valuable mineral resources make it a very vulnerable 10% of the world's land mass. Historical, scientific and descriptive accounts of the past, present and future of the last wilderness on Earth combine to make this a topical book. Meredith Hooper is a qualified historian who has been on the editorial board of The Round Table (The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs) from 1988 and is a member of the Association of British Science Writers.