Dennis Rawlins

It's not what you say; it's how you say it.

In 1909, Robert Peary, after twenty years of failed attempts, claimed that he had reached -- "discovered" -- the North Pole. He had no supporting evidence worthy of the name -- he had left all competent observers behind, he took no repeatable measurements that could have verified his position, he gathered no useful data. And he hid most of the few observations he did take.

He also claimed to have travelled at speeds that no one had ever matched before, despite having crippled feet, and his descriptions do not make a very good match for what we now believe was true about the North Pole in the early twentieth century.

He was also a bigot who treated his Black assistant Matthew Henson as sub-human and who cheated on his wife with at least one, and possibly several Inuit -- and the one we know he cheated with was below the age of consent. He also, for no other purpose than self-aggrandizement, stole a number of objects that the Inuit needed, such as three meteorites that were one of their few sources of metal.

So: Even if Peary made it to the Pole, it could be argued that he doesn't deserve to be recognized for it. And there were questions, from the start, about whether he made it.

This book, published more than half a century after Peary's death, should have settled the matter. Peary's extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof -- and Peary claimed to have travelled at speeds that no one else ever matched, and did so only when there was no one with him to check what he claimed, and he claimed to have travelled a course straight for the Pole, without deviation, even though he didn't take enough sextant readings to verify his course, and he didn't gather any of the data (such as compass variation) that would have let him cross-check his results and let others verify it. His records not only do not constitute extraordinary proof, they don't constitute proof at all. There is only one reasonable explanation for this set of impossible claims "supported" by a complete lack of verifiable data: Robert Peary never made the North Pole.

Sadly, Dennis Rawlins couldn't let well enough alone. His data is sufficient to prove his point. But he has to be constantly pounding the message home. A trivial example: He quite regularly adds italics to source he's citing, to show just exactly what was wrong with their statements. He insults, he insinuates, he snarls.

Frankly, this is a difficult book to read, simply because Rawlins is so hostile to his subject. Any little mis-statement is grounds for criticism, even though many of them are probably just that: mis-statements, not deliberate attempts to deceive. I constantly found myself wanting a break from the drumbeat of anger and righteous indignation. Indeed, sometimes it's hard to keep track of the data Rawlins offers, just because the attacks on Peary are so distracting.

So: The point of this book is correct. Robert Peary never made the North Pole, and because he was so full of himself, he didn't care that he had lied to the entire world. But unless you have a desperate need to see all the data on the matter, I can't recommend this book. It's just too mean. There are shorter, easier books that are much more likely to give you all the data you actually need.… (más)