McCahey, Daniella

English

University of Calgary Journal Hosting

236 • REVIEWS(even perfunctory) arenas of Arctic security studies, they are not the focus, nor the highlight, of this book.The author is well aware of Icelandic perspectives on use of force and historical resistance to militarization. The last chapter is dedicated to understanding a millennium’s worth of history of conflict and violence in Iceland, and contemporary Icelandic attitudes to security.This was my favourite chapter, and where Wheelersburg’s detailed, somewhat eccentric, writing style shines. I wanted to know all about the Vikings and witch hunts and pirates and communists, and it’s delivered in a very accessible way (though Icelandic historians would probably have some quibbles). Most of all, Wheelersburg shows he is aware of the cultural resistance faced in Iceland to recommendations for things like sub-strategic security forces. But he’s still going to try.  This is an unusual Arctic security book. It is not pure academic analysis, and that’s not a bad thing. The field can surely benefit from contributors with greater awareness of, and practical experience in, militaries and NATO. Wheelersburg provides that perspective. And although written before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it complements the current evolution of thinking in Arctic studies away from exceptionalism and towards preparedness. But its audience is small. For reasons Wheelersburg himself points out in the book, there is not a large appetite in Icelandic society for debate or action on securitization. The fact the recommendations are coming from a retired army captain is likely to raise skepticism amongst potential readers in that nation, whom I supect are his target audience.His writing style is more informal and personal than most books by Springer. It is explicitly advancing a policy recommendation, rather than analyzing the context. As he acknowledges, it is a departure from most contributions to the field. For some, that may be off-putting. But I suspect many others will appreciate it. It has elements of a memoir to it, and in many ways, that makes it more engaging to read. There are tidbits, like life in Keflavik from an American serviceman’s perspective, that are fascinating and deeply underrepresented in scholarly works.     Wheelersburg knows his subject, cares deeply about Icelandic security, and is passionate about it. If you are passionate about Icelandic security or Arctic military studies, you will want to read the book too, even if you come to different policy recommendations than he does. Because if you disagree, it will still lead you to think concretely about what your own recommendation for Icelandic security would be.Heather Exner-Pirot Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and Managing Editor of the Arctic Yearbookexnerpirot@gmail.com ANTARCTIC PIONEER: THE TRAILBLAZING LIFE OF JACKIE RONNE. By JOANNA KAFAROWSKI. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2022. ISBN 9781459749535. 304 p., maps, b&w illus., bib., notes, index, appendices. Softbound. Cdn$25.99. Also available in pdf and e-book format.Antarctic exploration in the first half of the twentieth century was invariably done by men. Indeed even today, most human activity in Antarctica remains heavily male-dominated. Joanna Kafarowski’s Antarctic Pioneer seeks to highlight the contribution that one woman made to Antarctic science and exploration. The first book-length biography of Edith “Jackie” Ronne, one of the two women members of the 1947–48 Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (RARE) to Stonington Island, illuminates the life of an extraordinary and understudied figure in polar history. RARE has itself received scant attention from scholars. While the expedition commander, Finn Ronne, as well as both women who accompanied their respective husbands to the ice, published accounts of their time in Antarctica, if historians write on American Antarctic history at all, more attention is paid to Finn Ronne’s rival, Richard E. Byrd. Kafarowski’s book draws on extensive research into Jackie Ronne’s life, most notably using papers and interviews drawn directly from Karen Ronne Tupek, the couple’s daughter. While the bulk of the text is on Jackie Ronne’s experiences with the RARE, the book also discusses her early life and some of the Antarctica-related work she undertook after returning home. Most interesting here was her involvement with the early days of Antarctic cruise ship tourism. Additionally, the author convincingly argues that Jackie Ronne played a major role in the RARE’s organization and actively contributed to the scientific and geographical program of the expedition.Kafarowski’s writing is engaging and indeed, it is somewhat shocking that a biography of Jackie Ronne, as one of the two first women to be members of an Antarctic expedition, had not been written before. As a biography aimed at a general audience, it does sometimes veer into hagiography. For instance, as the author acknowledges, Finn Ronne is widely seen as a controversial, indeed polarizing figure, in Antarctic history. Yet there is no serious attempt to engage with this controversy. The Ronne couple are our protagonists and as such, their major critics are silenced or even lightly villainized. Kafarowski includes an extensive bibliography of academic work on the history of women in Antarctica, but perhaps due to her intended audience, does little to actively engage with this scholarship.Through the book Kafarowski often describes Jackie Ronne as a remarkable or unusual or extraordinary woman. That very well may be—she certainly had an extraordinary life—yet her trip to Antarctica was not the result of her remarkableness; Kafarowski even acknowledges that she only went because her husband organized the expedition and wanted her to go. Women in science were not terribly unusual in this period, and of course Jackie Ronne was not REVIEWS • 237a scientist, but scientific expeditions were pretty solidly masculine affairs. Jennie Darlington, who wrote her own account of their expedition, is not afforded the same superlative descriptions in this book. I realize that this is not a biography of Jennie Darlington, but the author does not cast her visit to Antarctica as special in the way that she does for Ronne. In fact, much is made of Ronne being the first, when there was another woman there, a result of deliberate choices made by Finn Ronne (p. 78).Further, there are some inconsistencies. A footnote indicates that “Jackie Ronne was an intensely private person…” (p. 235). Yet this book draws heavily from her nearly 400-page autobiography, where Ronne shared detailed observations about Harry and Jennie Darlington’s marriage. As far as Jackie Ronne’s difficulty in getting her memoir published, even as she struggled with “a marked aversion” (p. 203) to writing about herself, several (male) Antarctic explorers from nearly the same period wrote memoirs, only to send their respective unpublished manuscripts to an archive, self-publish, or see very light distribution. Further, Jennie Darlington’s explosive memoir was quite widely read, and Finn and Jackie Ronne’s reaction to it was one of the most interesting elements of the book. And, rather than Jackie Ronne and Jennie Darlington’s pioneering participation in the RARE beginning a period when women were included in expeditions, American women scientists were only permitted in 1969.That said, after reading this book, I know more about Jackie and Finn Ronne’s lives, particularly in their post-expedition days. It might also be read fruitfully in conjunction with other popular literature on the wives of polar explorers, such as Anne Fletcher’s Widows of the Ice: The Women that Scott’s Antarctic Expedition Left Behind (2022) or Kari Herbert’s Polar Wives: The Remarkable Women Behind the World’s Most Daring Explorers (2012). I can recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone interested in the history of American exploration in the Antarctic or in the history of women in Antarctica. As Kafarowski concludes, for all the women who traveled to Antarctica, someone had to be first. It is terrific that the story of that first has now been told.REFERENCESFletcher, A. 2022. Widows of the ice: The women that Scott’s antarctic expedition left behind. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing. Herbert, K. 2012. Polar wives: The remarkable women behind the world’s most daring explorers. Vancouver, British Columbia: Greystone Books.Daniella McCaheyTexas Tech UniversityBox 41013, 131 Holden HallLubbock, Texas 79409, USA dmccahey@ttu.edu 

Antarctic Pioneer: The Trailblazing Life of Jackie Ronne, by Joanna Kafarowski

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Antarctic Pioneer: The Trailblazing Life of Jackie Ronne, by Joanna Kafarowski

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