The Big Nail: The Story of the Cook-Peary Feud

On September 1, 1909, Dr. Frederick Cook signaled the world that he had reached the North Pole. Only five days later, Robert E. Peary sent a message from the north that he had attained the Pole. Then on September 8th Peary said in a telegram to the New York Times that “Cook’s story should not be taken too seriously.”

The greatest dispute in the history of exploration had begun, a dispute which was to see: a bitter editorial war between the nation’s two greatest newspapers; the onslaught of one of the first covert propaganda blitzes in the US (on behalf of Peary); an incredible journalistic deception brought off against the naïve Cook; and a congressional investigation that was officially suppressed! – but despite all of this turmoil the controversy has remained alive until the present.

Wright not only recounts the almost unbelievable events surrounding the Coo-Peary feud, but probes the question of which of the two men probably did make the Pole – if either. The book’s revelations and conclusions ought to make us a good deal less confident in our maps and encyclopedia.

An exciting and suspenseful story of strong-willed men and large events. Wright’s portrayal of the contrasting characters of the two antagonists gives the book the dimension of a novel, with an outcome that is an ironic comment on the fate of the heroic individual in modern society.