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Cook and Peary: The Polar Controversy, Resolved
Traces the contentious history of the Polar Controversy and reveals balanced conclusions about who really reached the North Pole -- Cook or Peary.
1133 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 12, 2013
~Two Months Earlier~
OH NO THIS IS A THOUSAND PAGES LONG WHAT HAVE I DONE
~Now~
If you're just joining us, in September 1909, Frederick A. Cook announced to the world that he'd reached the North Pole. Less than a week later, Robert E. Peary announced that he'd reached the North Pole and that there was no way in hell that Cook had. A hundred years later, we're still sorting out if either of them did what they claimed.
I ordered this book from a distant library because I was desperate to get some resolution to the whole North Pole Cook/Peary mess, and this promised me, right in the title, that it would resolve the polar controversy. Then I went to pick it up and disastrously discovered it was 1133 pages long. I heaved a tortured sigh, questioned my sanity, and started reading.
Somewhere around page three hundred or so I started to doubt that anything would be resolved. (My notes: "THE TITLE IS A LIE.") This is because the first part (all 750 pages of it) is just a straightforward history. I'd have to wait another five hundred pages before I got to the actual analysis. In the beginning, this was not a problem. The early chapters are excellent, particularly the ones covering the 1891-92 North Greenland Expedition, which takes multiple perspectives from primary sources and blends them into a fascinating look at the relationships between the expedition members and what it was like to spend a year in such cold, close quarters. I'd read about this expedition several times, but Bryce's treatment really made it come alive. I also enjoyed the chapter about the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-1901. It reads like really good historical fiction. But it didn't last. The author, in his attempt to provide a comprehensive look at the lives of these two men, went around the bend into grindingly tedious. The chapters on Cook's two Mount McKinley trips are confusing and barely tolerable. Yet, at the same time, Bryce skips over a shocking amount.
It seems incredible that anything could be left out of a book this length, but there's only the barest mention of Peary's Farthest North in 1906, or his 1909 attempt at the Pole. Yet we spend a hundred pages wandering around the Alaskan wilderness with Cook. And then there's the hundreds of pages devoted to Cook's career in oil prospecting, his trial for mail fraud, and his time in Leavenworth. Peary's dead by this point, which only further disturbs the balance of the narrative, which has always been heavily weighted towards Cook's endeavors. Maybe it's because Peary knew how to keep his mouth shut and no one could get Cook to stop talking, leading to a dearth of primary sources on Peary such as letters and diaries, or maybe it's because Cook was a guy with a lot of ideas who couldn't stay still and Peary just wanted the North Pole and once he got it retreated from the spotlight, leaving his minions to harry Cook. Whatever the reason—and Bryce doesn't go into it—the book is thoroughly devoted to knowing every aspect of Cook's life, and though it's without bias it does feel unbalanced and, at times, irrelevant.
I really feel like the first part went off the rails somewhere around 1912, but the book redeems itself in the second part where Bryce breaks out all the critical commentary he was saving, like a delicious cupcake at the end of a sawdust casserole. The commentary part is great. Juicy with gossip and hidden secrets. Bryce destroys Cook's claim to the Pole using his own journals, and even systematically picks apart the aura of wronged innocence that Cook had always maintained, a trait that his supporters love to use as evidence of his honesty. Bryce even goes after Peary and dismisses his claim to the Pole with a simple wave of the hand. Others have put a lot of effort into examining Peary's story, notably Wally Herbert in The Noose of Laurels, so I didn't feel cheated out of an explanation in that regard, though other readers might.
Cook is so much easier to like than Peary, who was a serious asshole, but it seems Cook was just as devious as the Admiral and lied with ease, maintaining his poise no matter what the circumstances. I liked Cook, but Bryce builds an impressive case against him, and I now feel certain that neither of these jerks made it to the Pole. Cook's own journals damn him with their erasures, empty pages, skipped entries, and changed dates. Like Bryce, I can see no reason why his journals—hidden away for decades and only recently available for study—would look like this if they were a product of a legitimate trip to the Pole. And Peary. His story doesn't hold up under scrutiny either, and his navigational techniques consisted almost entirely of "head north and hope I'm going in a straight line." That's no way to get to the Pole.
Bryce is a research librarian and it shows in his extensive source notes, which are conscientious and informative. The prose is easy to follow, and both the history and the analysis are well organized, but the index is inadequate, which is a real weakness in a book of this size. I'd come across a name that was familiar, but I couldn't remember the context, so I'd look it up in the index, only to find that the instance I'd encountered wasn't in there and there were no earlier mentions listed, either. The book has small in-line black and white illustrations, many of which are presented without attribution or explanation, and completely lack an index.
Three stars. It needed more maps, a separate bibliography, and to be less boring in the middle, but this is like a master class in the North Pole controversy, and, as promised on the cover, it does resolve it. I feel completely satisfied on the topic and will now move on with the rest of my life.
OH NO THIS IS A THOUSAND PAGES LONG WHAT HAVE I DONE
~Now~
If you're just joining us, in September 1909, Frederick A. Cook announced to the world that he'd reached the North Pole. Less than a week later, Robert E. Peary announced that he'd reached the North Pole and that there was no way in hell that Cook had. A hundred years later, we're still sorting out if either of them did what they claimed.
I ordered this book from a distant library because I was desperate to get some resolution to the whole North Pole Cook/Peary mess, and this promised me, right in the title, that it would resolve the polar controversy. Then I went to pick it up and disastrously discovered it was 1133 pages long. I heaved a tortured sigh, questioned my sanity, and started reading.
Somewhere around page three hundred or so I started to doubt that anything would be resolved. (My notes: "THE TITLE IS A LIE.") This is because the first part (all 750 pages of it) is just a straightforward history. I'd have to wait another five hundred pages before I got to the actual analysis. In the beginning, this was not a problem. The early chapters are excellent, particularly the ones covering the 1891-92 North Greenland Expedition, which takes multiple perspectives from primary sources and blends them into a fascinating look at the relationships between the expedition members and what it was like to spend a year in such cold, close quarters. I'd read about this expedition several times, but Bryce's treatment really made it come alive. I also enjoyed the chapter about the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-1901. It reads like really good historical fiction. But it didn't last. The author, in his attempt to provide a comprehensive look at the lives of these two men, went around the bend into grindingly tedious. The chapters on Cook's two Mount McKinley trips are confusing and barely tolerable. Yet, at the same time, Bryce skips over a shocking amount.
It seems incredible that anything could be left out of a book this length, but there's only the barest mention of Peary's Farthest North in 1906, or his 1909 attempt at the Pole. Yet we spend a hundred pages wandering around the Alaskan wilderness with Cook. And then there's the hundreds of pages devoted to Cook's career in oil prospecting, his trial for mail fraud, and his time in Leavenworth. Peary's dead by this point, which only further disturbs the balance of the narrative, which has always been heavily weighted towards Cook's endeavors. Maybe it's because Peary knew how to keep his mouth shut and no one could get Cook to stop talking, leading to a dearth of primary sources on Peary such as letters and diaries, or maybe it's because Cook was a guy with a lot of ideas who couldn't stay still and Peary just wanted the North Pole and once he got it retreated from the spotlight, leaving his minions to harry Cook. Whatever the reason—and Bryce doesn't go into it—the book is thoroughly devoted to knowing every aspect of Cook's life, and though it's without bias it does feel unbalanced and, at times, irrelevant.
I really feel like the first part went off the rails somewhere around 1912, but the book redeems itself in the second part where Bryce breaks out all the critical commentary he was saving, like a delicious cupcake at the end of a sawdust casserole. The commentary part is great. Juicy with gossip and hidden secrets. Bryce destroys Cook's claim to the Pole using his own journals, and even systematically picks apart the aura of wronged innocence that Cook had always maintained, a trait that his supporters love to use as evidence of his honesty. Bryce even goes after Peary and dismisses his claim to the Pole with a simple wave of the hand. Others have put a lot of effort into examining Peary's story, notably Wally Herbert in The Noose of Laurels, so I didn't feel cheated out of an explanation in that regard, though other readers might.
Cook is so much easier to like than Peary, who was a serious asshole, but it seems Cook was just as devious as the Admiral and lied with ease, maintaining his poise no matter what the circumstances. I liked Cook, but Bryce builds an impressive case against him, and I now feel certain that neither of these jerks made it to the Pole. Cook's own journals damn him with their erasures, empty pages, skipped entries, and changed dates. Like Bryce, I can see no reason why his journals—hidden away for decades and only recently available for study—would look like this if they were a product of a legitimate trip to the Pole. And Peary. His story doesn't hold up under scrutiny either, and his navigational techniques consisted almost entirely of "head north and hope I'm going in a straight line." That's no way to get to the Pole.
Bryce is a research librarian and it shows in his extensive source notes, which are conscientious and informative. The prose is easy to follow, and both the history and the analysis are well organized, but the index is inadequate, which is a real weakness in a book of this size. I'd come across a name that was familiar, but I couldn't remember the context, so I'd look it up in the index, only to find that the instance I'd encountered wasn't in there and there were no earlier mentions listed, either. The book has small in-line black and white illustrations, many of which are presented without attribution or explanation, and completely lack an index.
Three stars. It needed more maps, a separate bibliography, and to be less boring in the middle, but this is like a master class in the North Pole controversy, and, as promised on the cover, it does resolve it. I feel completely satisfied on the topic and will now move on with the rest of my life.
April 5, 2013
I'm finally finished with Robert Bryce's massive "Cook and Peary: The Polar Controversy Resolved." The book is ginormous enough that there are lots of interesting tidbits about the two polar explorers... but also there is too much extraneous detail about Cook in particular. (I really started rolling my eyes at the 20th description of a sumptuous dinner he attended.) After a while the book really starts to get repetitive... Peary accuses Cook of lying.... Cook's friends defend him... questions are raised about Peary.... rinse, repeat.
This book is really more of a biography of Cook's whole life, rather than an exploration of Cook's and Peary's claims to be the first to the North Pole. I really started skimming once I got to the 100's of pages about Cook's oil scam, which eventually landed him in jail.
Overall, I found the book to be disappointing... it was a hard, long slog without much payoff. (Does anyone really believe Cook and Peary reached the pole at this point? It's been fairly well established Cook, in particular, lied about this and his ascent up Mt. McKinley at this point.) I really didn't learn much new about either explorer that was super interesting to me.
Possibly an abridged version of this book would have been better. That said, if you're writing a research paper about Cook or Peary, this book probably has everything you need.
This book is really more of a biography of Cook's whole life, rather than an exploration of Cook's and Peary's claims to be the first to the North Pole. I really started skimming once I got to the 100's of pages about Cook's oil scam, which eventually landed him in jail.
Overall, I found the book to be disappointing... it was a hard, long slog without much payoff. (Does anyone really believe Cook and Peary reached the pole at this point? It's been fairly well established Cook, in particular, lied about this and his ascent up Mt. McKinley at this point.) I really didn't learn much new about either explorer that was super interesting to me.
Possibly an abridged version of this book would have been better. That said, if you're writing a research paper about Cook or Peary, this book probably has everything you need.
January 14, 2013
Bryce delves into the real Fred Cook and attempts to solve the question of Cook's claim to the pole. On the way he also disproves Peary's claim as well. A fascinating read that lies bare the issues behind the attainment of the North Pole. It's long, sure. But I found it more a mystery than a slog. In all likelihood, Amundsen was the first to claim the pole, something he suspected early on.
November 2, 2014
What a fascinating book. The polar controversy began when Dr. Frederick A. Cook announced he had gotten to the north pole. Then Peary announced HE had gotten to the pole. This book tells the history of Cook and his claim and dissects the proofs so that there'll be no doubt about who got there and who was a humbug. Totally can't put it down book, all 975 pages of it.
October 2, 2016
This is the best nonfiction book I have ever read. This author is pure pure no nonsense researcher.
September 15, 2025
fascinating
February 23, 2010
So far, so good
May 14, 2010
I found this book fascinating. The profile of Cook in particular is wonderfully done.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews