Barrow's Boys: A Stirring Story of Daring, Fortitude, and Outright Lunacy. (Book Reviews).

Barrow's Boys: A Stirring Story of Daring, Fortitude, and Outright Lunacy. Fergus Fleming, New York: Grove, 2001.

Adventure and exploration books have routinely topped the bestseller list since the 1997 appearance of Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. Fergus Fleming's Barrow's Boys combines the narrative appeal of the best of the adventure books with the historical context required by scholars in his story of John Barrow, Great Britain's Second Secretary to the Admiralty during the first half of the 19th century.

Fleming's work is an attempt to focus attention on Barrow's crucial role in the exploration of uncharted portions of the world by British explorers. But …