Cook and Peary [Hardcover]

Robert M. Bryce (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 24, 1997

On September 1, 1909, Frederick A. Cook announced that he had reached the North Pole. Five days later Commander Robert E. Peary claimed the honor. Through his completely documented research, author Robert Bryce reconstructs events and presents the explorers, their motivations, and their accomplishments in their own words and in the words of their contemporaries. 125 photos.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The North Pole is a desolate place. But it's at the top of the world and holds magnetic allure. Two explorers made mad dashes for it in 1908 and 1909. Within five days of each other, both Frederick Cook and Robert Peary claimed to have gotten there first. Together they inspired a bitter and never-ending controversy about who is the real Columbus of the Arctic. Every decade or so a new author claims to offer the "final word" on this dispute. In this massive book (1,133 pages), Robert Bryce may at last live up to the billing. His intriguing proposal: Both men failed, knew it and lied about it.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1152 pages
• Publisher: Stackpole Books; 1st edition (January 24, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811703177
• ISBN-13: 978-0811703178
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,529,524 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This battle-of-the-hoaxes is a real page-turner, February 25, 1999

By A Customer

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This review is from: Cook and Peary (Hardcover)

Don't be put off by bulk: despite its 1,151 pages, "Cook and Peary" is a real page-turner. In elegant, concise language, it tells the compelling story of not one but two of the great hoaxes of all time. The story of the two men who falsely claimed to have reached the North Pole is one of mendacity and gullibility and of the victory of faith over knowledge. It highlights the shakiness of the foundations of what we think of as common knowledge. This year marks the 90th anniversary of the start of the great polar controversy, and it shows that the balance is tipping yet again. It began favoring Cook, then swung decisively to Peary, despite many initial doubters. The idea that both men were fakers dates from the 1970s, and it seems to be finally prevailing. Today, the New York Times, once a passionate defender of Peary, reported last November, "most historians believe both explorers lied." In the first part of the book, Robert Bryce, a meticulous researcher who has the wisdom to trust absolutely no one, tells thhis eye-opening story without making any judgments. He leaves you to make your own. In the second part, he examines the available evidence, some of which he was the first to examine, and tries to answer the two essential questions: Did either reach the pole? He concludes that Cook's own long-hidden journals prove he turned back after 100 miles or so on the floating Arctic Ocean ice pack, or less than a quarter of the way. On Peary, he shows convincing evidence that Peary stopped short of the pole, probably between 100 and 50 miles from the northern axis of the Earth. Bryce explains how Peary used his powerful friends to press his case, while Cook relied on his charm, saying over and over, in effect, "trust me." Bryce shows how either would have been believed, even without the proofs that are ordinarily required, if the other hadn't been there to challenge him. But most amazing, he shows the phenomenal chutzpah of both and the credibility of a world before which most of the damning facts were out in plain view. "Cook and Peary" details the slow collapse of the two claims despite a still-vigorous Peary defense by the National Geographic magazine and persistent lobbying work by the Cook Society. It is this collapse that led the Guinness Book of Records to get rid of Peary, replacing him in 1997 by a 1948 Soviet airplane expeditions. The World Almanac, which once tersely reported Peary's conquest of the pole, as had virtually all world reference books since the Encyclopaedia Britannica found for Peary in 1911, now mentions that there are serious challenges to his claim. But this debate is too old to ever die, and someone will no doubt eventually come out with new facts to illuminate a partisan point of view.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A cross between a diamond mine and a landfill..., February 19, 1999

By 

Dr. Nancy L. Nicholson "nicholnl" (Oxford, OHIO USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Cook and Peary (Hardcover)

This book by Bryce is full of fascinating information. One of its most valuable features is its appendix of documents cited (the diamond mine analogy); helpful to a person wishing to study this topic.

However, the organization of book sections is variable and not helpful (the landfill analogy). Inconsistent format makes it hard to sort important facts about the attainment of the North Pole by either Cook or Peary from details of their lives. Other reviewers have spoken to some of these "character of the times and family history" issues, so I will not add any more observations on those subjects.

This book is potentially excellent but needs an especially ruthless editor! One obvious reason is to editorially tame and organize the jumbled structure of the text. An equally compelling reason for editing is that explanatory graphics are unreadably tiny in many cases and have no figure numbers or legends. This is unfortunate in a book which intends to help readers figure out (visualize) what is likely to have happened.

Images are often no larger than a big postage stamp and are incompletely described. For example, an image central to understanding navigational difficulties encountered on a moving sea ice pack is a diagram of both North poles. It shows three sets of lines on the teensy graphic, only two of which are discussed. Lines of force centered on the magnetic north pole combined with the standard grid centered on the geographic north pole are included with a third set of tenuous lines not discussed in the text.

Issues of faked photos are also important to the discussions of evidence. While reproduced photographs are apparently correctly cross-referenced, it is difficult for a reader to compare when an original and a fake are not shown on the same page. At minimum, issues of page printing press consistency arise, along with questions concerning how prints might be altered from original negatives (glass slides or film) before the Digital Age of computer imaging. In general, important landscape features are difficult to locate from text discussions of photos. In particular, the entire Mount McKinley series of photos and maps of glaciers, ridges and camps is hard for a reader to assess.

This book is a huge labor which falls somewhat short of its goal of making whopping amounts of information intelligible. I look forward to the next edition with more readable graphics and reworked text.

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing slice of history, December 26, 1999

By 

Susan R. Matthews (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Cook and Peary (Hardcover)

The book's title promises a "resolution" to the great Cook/Peary debate, and resolution is indeed to be found: but I had so much fun along the way that I was sorry when the book ended.

The author carefully and dispassionately relates and evaluates events, claims, counter-claims, and rhetoric surrounding the flamboyant career of Fred Cook, with rather less emphasis on Robert Peary. One is not really surprised to find the bulk of the text taken up with following Dr. Cook's career in light of the fact that his has been the more controversial vita.

My previous exposure to this controversy has been all on the Peary side and I found this narrative to be a real eye-opener in multiple respects. My understanding of the issues, and my sympathies for both men, are quite altered as a result of having read this book.

The partisan passion that Cook versus Peary still arouses in the hearts and minds of intelligent and otherwise rational people is astounding. This book is a real gem on multiple levels: not just for its careful assembly of facts, claims, and suppositions, but for what it has to say about media -- mass communications -- and the psychology of explorers and the people who support them.

Finally, I found this to be an amazingly graceful read for a book of its size -- so absorbing that I found myself regretfully approaching the end of the book in half the time expected. Well written, well researched, carefully presented -- a great book to have in the library!