National hero. Scientist. Adventurer and explorer. Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld is in many ways the perfect image of all these epithets. Yet he was also a liberal and at times rebellious agitator who was forced to leave his homeland of Finland after a conflict with the Russian authorities. Nordenskiöld achieved international fame when, aboard the ship Vega, he became the first to successfully navigate the Northeast Passage following a winter during which the expedition was trapped in the ice along the northeastern coast of Siberia.

Nils Uddenberg s book The Polar Explorer, the first major biography of Nordenskiöld, addresses all this and more. It recounts Nordenskiöld s numerous Arctic expeditions, his scientific work and political engagements, his professional achievments and missteps, his family and personal relationships. The book also situates his life within the dynamic intellectual climate of the nineteenth century, marked by major scientific discoveries such as the theory of the Ice Age and Darwin s theory of evolution. Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld emerges as a man in constant motion, with the world before him – a restless optimist whoaccomplished what many considered impossible.