Roland Huntford is the world's foremost authority on the polar expeditions and their protagonists. He is the author of the award-winning Two Planks and a Passion: the Dramatic History of Skiing and Scott and Amundsen: Last Place on Earth and he is the biographer of Shackleton and Nansen. He was the Scandinavian correspondent on The Observer for many years.

'This is a deeply scholarly work ... Fortunately scholarly in this instance is not synonymous with dull ... Huntford manages to to bind a wealth of material together with a strong narrative thread.' Simon Redfern, The Independent on Sunday

• Preface,Acknowledgements                                                   Note, Maps   1. Skiing Necesse Est                                        2. Ski Tracks in the Milky Way                                    3. The Earliest Written Sources                     4. The Finnish National Epic: Kalevala  5. The First Printed 6. Norway - the Cradle of Skiing as a Sport7. The Influence of Rousseau                   8. The Ski in Foreign Literature 9. Evolution of Skiing as a Sport 10. The Men of Telemark 11. Development of Technique and Equipment 12. The First Nordic Marathon                                             13. The Conquest of the Mountain World      14. Fridtjof Nansen and the First Crossing of Greenland 15. The Nordic Olympia 16. The Waisted Telemark Ski17. The Rise of Ski Touring and the Misadventures of Roald Amundsen18. As Important as the Plays of Ibsen 19. The Spread of Skiing on the Continent20. Norwegians Bring Skiing to Austria-Hungary and Montenegro 21. Skiing Comes to Switzerland 22. Davos23. The English Skiing at Davos 24. Mathias Zdarsky25. St.Moritz   26. Skiing in France27. Polar Exloration  28. The Inventions that Founded Modern Skiing 29. The New World30. The Study of Snow Structure31. The First Winter Olympics at Chamonix 32. Mass Winter Tourism33. The International Recognition of Downhill Skiing34. Skiing Mechanized and Politicized 35. Military Skiing 36. Skiing Since 1945 Bibliography