COOK & PEARY The Polar Controversy, Resolved

Draws on diaries, private letters, newspaper reports, and other primary sources to examine the careers of two rival explorers and the controversy over which one had been the first to reach the North Pole

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.