Re: Optimism?
I wouldn't get too keen on Mawson as a hero........if a TV documentary last year with a somewhat revisionist view of polar history is to be believed, Mawson deliberately engineered the death of his remaining colleagues so that (1) he (Mawson) wouldn't run out of food (2) he could turn to cannibalism if required. The evidence was incomplete as to whether he did turn cannibal, but the narrator indicated that he believed Mawson did.
