Cook and Peary
by Robert M. Bryce

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Book Reviews of Cook and Peary

Book Review: Intriguing study of the Polar Controversy and human nature.
Summary: 5 Stars

Cook & Peary: The Polar Controversy, Resolved, is a scholarly expedition of sorts undertaken by Robert M. Bryce. In his book, which is filled with information from diaries, photos, ships' logs, private letters, trial records, and other sources, many of which were unpublished, Bryce addresses the controversy over who reached the North Pole first, Frederick Cook in 1908, Robert Peary in 1909, both, or neither.

Mr. Bryce has skillfully stitched together a substantial amount of information. He writes with a tone that is interesting, honest, and at times poetic. Though the book is lengthy, it reads well and is all the more stirring perhaps because these extraordinary men lived in our country and in our century. There is much in this book for the adventurous heart.

Furthermore, Bryce is quite successful at recreating the world of Frederick Cook and Robert Peary. One of the reasons for this is his respect for the historical appropriateness of the material in his book, down to the single word. Bryce has taken great care in portraying the people involved in The Polar Controversy as they most probably were. To this end, he has not edited out the true, if sometimes unsavory by today's standards, attitudes of these individuals. Therefore the reader can view the intriguing events of the Polar Controversy through a portal virtually wiped clean of the film of the years between so that it does not in itself create distortion. Bryce is adept at time travel and he takes his reader along. It is evident early on that Cook & Peary is about far more than a couple of guys trying to stick flags in the ice.

The amount of research that Mr. Bryce did for this book is by itself impressive. He kept more than 2,000 notes detailing his research process, so that anyone who might want to can verify the accuracy of his research.

The ultimate value of Cook & Peary extends well past its treatment of the Polar Controversy. As it has been said, it is the journey that counts, not its end. No one may ever understand this idea more acutely than Cook, who wrote the following while in Leavenworth prison:

Our hardest death is the death that we live in fear of death. Life is good and true to those who try with the sunshine of better days before them. The world and the stars and all the universe has to offer is but the birth of thy own thoughts.

If by this new understanding I am enabled to deliver a message to others which will enable them to envision the unknown ever before, then in spite of my many mistakes some credit for original discovery should go on my grave.

The world has important use for dreamers, even if they fail.

In conclusion, Cook & Peary: The Polar Controversy Resolved is a trek into a time of discovery. It opens a door into the world of Arctic exploration, and into the turn-of-the-century America that Cook and Peary with their oddly linked fates left and returned to; but most of all the book is a quest into human nature.

Summary of Cook and Peary

United States Books

• Books > Subjects > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical
• History > Americas > United States > 20th Century
• World
• Travel