Lecture
Daniel Snowman
Thursday 18.12.2025
Daniel Snowman
Pole Positions: The Polar Regions and the Future of the Planet
Thursday 18.12.2025
How to watch
This lecture starts on 18 December at 5:00pm (UK).
Summary
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I produced a series of BBC radio documentaries about the Arctic and Antarctic, following lengthy and extensive visits to both. I went on to write a book about the polar regions, my experiences there and what I had learned from the polar scientists I had accompanied. The book was published in 1993 and entitled Pole Positions: The Polar Regions and the Future of the Planet. It was, I believe, the first book to contain substantial material about the imminent dangers of climate change.
Daniel Snowman
Daniel Snowman is a social and cultural historian. Born in London to a Jewish family in 1938 and educated at Cambridge and Cornell, Daniel became a lecturer at the University of Sussex and went on to work for many years at the BBC as senior producer of radio features and documentaries. A senior research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research (University of London), his many books include a social history of opera and a study of the cultural impact of the “Hitler Emigrés” and, most recently, his memoir Just Passing Through: Interactions with the World 1938-2021.