Antarctica

Like Captain James Cook, I have been slowly circling the Antarctic. While labouring on other books, the ice-covered continent kept looming into view like an alluring mirage, suggesting itself as a subject worthy of closer exploration. The chance to do so came after I completed Conquest: How societies overwhelm others (2008), which examined how so-called 'supplanting societies' claim territories and make them their own over an extended period of time. It was a new way of looking at the history of the world.

David Day has been a research fellow at Clare College in Cambridge and a Visiting Professor at University College Dublin, the University of Aberdeen, and the Center for Pacific and American Studies at the University of Tokyo. He is currently a research associate at La Trobe University in Melbourne. He is the author of many books, including Conquest: How Societies Overwhelm Others and the award-winning Claiming a Continent: A History of Australia.