Rating: 
Summary: File it in the Dewey Decimal System under "True Crime"
Review: A crime perpetrated by an immoral, ethnocentric, Caucasian "Christian" society against Polar "Eskimos." This book was very difficult to read. The author, himself an Inuit, does an excellent job of telling this true tale in a straight- forward manner. It's just that the tale itself is horrifying. As Minik himself rhetorically posed to a New York news reporter: "How would Peary like to have his daughter carried off to the Arctic and abandoned to the charity of some kindly Eskimos? And what would the explorer do if he were walking through the museum and came across his own father staring at him blankly from a glass case?"
Rating:
Summary: An impressive achievement, and a really good read
Review: As Kevin Spacey says in his foreword, "there is not a page in this book without its horrors and wonders." When I read a description of this book in a newspaper article - a six-year-old Eskimo boy who is brought to New York in 1897 by Robert Peary, then abandoned by Peary when the adults in the group become ill, and in effect set adrift when he is orphaned - I thought this tale in itself sounded interesting. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover the book to be far richer, with more interestng characters and unexpected twists and turns than I ever could have imagined. Though the book has many new and revealing things to say about famous figures from the goldn age of polar exploration and is the first major book I know to tell its story from the perspective of the indigenous Inuit, it is largely a fascinating period piece from turn-of-the-century New York City. The characters reveal themseles slowly, as in the best fiction; Mr. Harper has done a world class job of fleshing out the details, and his unadorned writing style allows the focus to remain on his characters and story, where it belongs. I couldn't put this book down, and still can't stop talking about it to friends.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating tale of a man caught between two worlds
Review: I first bought the self-published edition of Kenn Harper's "Give Me My Father's Body" after meeting him at an upstate New York museum. Later I was able to bring him to an international conference at the Byrd Polar Research Center where he discussed the inter-relationship between the Polar Eskimo and Cook, Peary and other white explorers of the late 19th and early 20th century.His well-deserved mainline publishing of the second edition gains the recognition his work did not receive a decade or more ago. It is a tragic yet revealing story of our turn-of-the-century imperial culture expressed by Americanb treatment of all "native" peoples, and extended in this case to the northernmost inhabitants. The real story here besides the individual dimension of Minik and his extended true and adopted family is the chauvinistic arrogance of the museum community and its agents "in the field" during this period. One of these was Robert E. Peary, who brought Minik and his fellow tribesmen to New York, all of who except Minik were abandoned in a damp basement room at the American Museum of Natural History, succumbing of tuberculosis. The title refers to Minik's plea to obtain his father's skeleton, which had been "mounted and preserved at the Museum" following its dissection at Bellevue Hospital. The contemptable action of the Miseum in staging a fake burial is something that the Nazis and Soviets woulkd perfect later in the century. The issue of treating aboriginal tribes as but chattel to the particular expedition that comes into contact with them was prominent with Peary, who saw the Polar Eskimo as but exploration inventory along with the dogs and sledges. This extended to his contempt for their welfare, having removed the three Cape York meteorites in 1894 and 1897 despte the fact that they constituted the Eskimo's only source of weapons and implements. While this undertaking might have been to shift public attention from Peary's expedition failures--most of his biographere speculate upon this--another might have been sheer greed. Peary took the meteorites from Greenland, a country with a loose sovereignty to Denmark, without even asking the tribe which depended upon them as a source for metal. He "presented": them to his wife, who in turn "sold" them to the wife of Morris K. Jessup, the president of the Am,erican Museum and also of the Peary Arctic Club, who in turn "donated" them to the Museum. The Peary's realized $50,000, a nice sum in the 1890s, and the procedure was classic period textbook for wills and trusts. Harper also relates that Minik contributed something of value about the controversy bertween Peary and his onetime exploration surgeon Frederick A. Cook, over their respective claims of having reached the North Pole. Minik knew both of their expedition companions from the Polar Eskimo tribe, saying that Peary's account was held in doubt while "Cook made a great trip north." More telling was the tribe's assessment of both men: "Peary is hated for his cruelty...(while) Cook is loved by all." Yet like the native American, their opinions counted little when it came to "the white man's business."
Rating: 
Summary: I've read much better
Review: I purchased this book for an Anthropology course in the Spring of 2001 and was just appalled at what I read. The singlemindedness of Robert Peary was reprehensible. The arrogance with which he treated the Inuit he came into contact with and the devasting effect on one little boy! There was no thought of the consequences to the actions of one (person) and many suffered from it. I recommend this book to anyone who doubts just how far we have come in terms of tolerance, compassion, and understanding of other cultures. It was an amazing tale!
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing...... sad
Review: Kenn Harper has managed to bring together an amazing story through detailed research. Minik, the Polar Eskimo child, was brought to the US by Robert Peary and essentially placed on display. The story of his disconnected life is full of pathos and sorrow. Yet Harper weaves the story with life. Peary's behaviors were simply egotistic and reprehensible. He treated the Eskimos as his property. He placed their lives in harms' way by bringing them to a culture and location that assaulted their senses and immune systems. Minik was the price paid for that deed. I did get bogged down in names from time to time, especially as Harper recounted the financial misdealings of Wallace, who had taken responsibility for Minik. But overall, the story is entertaining and enlightening. It speaks to the ethnocentrism of Peary's generation and to the isolation of the Polar Eskimos. It took me a long time to read and absorb this book but it was rewarding in the end... to see and feel a culture so far away.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing...... sad
Review: Kenn Harper has managed to bring together an amazing story through detailed research. Minik, the Polar Eskimo child, was brought to the US by Robert Peary and essentially placed on display. The story of his disconnected life is full of pathos and sorrow. Yet Harper weaves the story with life. Peary's behaviors were simply egotistic and reprehensible. He treated the Eskimos as his property. He placed their lives in harms' way by bringing them to a culture and location that assaulted their senses and immune systems. Minik was the price paid for that deed. I did get bogged down in names from time to time, especially as Harper recounted the financial misdealings of Wallace, who had taken responsibility for Minik. But overall, the story is entertaining and enlightening. It speaks to the ethnocentrism of Peary's generation and to the isolation of the Polar Eskimos. It took me a long time to read and absorb this book but it was rewarding in the end... to see and feel a culture so far away.
Rating:
Summary: A Sad, Short Life
Review: Kenn Harper's biography of Minik Peary Wallace was a fascinating look at not just the sad life of a young Eskimo brought to this country as a "specimen" but also provided a unique perspective of the society which allowed it to happen. They may have been referred to as the "good old days," but in the day and age when circuses toured the country with freaks, the "acquisition" of 'primitive' people by institutions such as New York's Museum of Natural History was only marginally more respectable. (In my humble opinion.) Minik, who was just seven years old when brought to New York City from his native Greenland along with his father and four others, quickly fell ill, but unlike all but one of the others --lived. The other survivor returned to Greenland within the year, but Minik remained behind to be raised by the Museum's Supervisor of Buildings as an adopted son. That the museum arranged a "burial" of Minik's father, but in reality kept the bones for display, was just one of many deceptions Minik was saddled with over the years. As a word of warning. Don't expect to sail through a reading of this book. The names alone* will slow you down. Not that that's a bad thing: Think of it like driving on cobblestones. You're forced to go slowly, but you get to enjoy the view. Photographs interspersed throughout the text helped to bring things a little more to "life." * Names such as Aleqasinnguaq, Nukappiannguaq, Qisunnaguaq, Atangana, Angutilluarsuk, and Taliilannguaq to name a few. They don't really roll off the tounge!
Rating:
Summary: Slight annoyances didn't ruin the book
Review: Kenn Harper's Give Me My Father's Body is undeniably and superbly researched; easily the book's crowning achievement. Occasionally though, I was annoyed with the "what if" scenarios. At least twice in the book Harper says what would have happened if things had gone another way. In one instance, the book describes Minik's plan to return to the Greenland and to lead a group of Inuit to the North Pole. He hoped to attain international honour for his people. Harper made the declaration that even had Minik tried, there was no way that he would have been successful. He further added that Minik's desire to prove the superiority of his race was an ethnocentric idea no doubt learned from the white people of New York, that the Greenland Inuit would balk at such ideas and that, with nothing to gain but glory for their people, they would surely refuse to help Minik. Even if Harper's learned ethnocentrism theory is correct, Harper has no way of ever knowing what Minik could have accomplished had he tried. If Minik had learned such ideas from white people, who's to say the Greenland Inuit wouldn't in turn learn such ideas from Minik? The point is, no one knows what would have happened and it is futile to guess (even for the well-informed). Also, the edition of the book that I have, has included discussion questions at the end for readers groups. These are very laughable. To paraphrase a typical question, "Kenn Harper lives among the people that he writes about and is therefore the greatest historian and writer to ever write about Northern peoples. Discuss how his portrayal of Eskimos is the most accurate description ever to be put on paper." But despite the embarrassing readers club guide at the end and the occasional subjective statement from Harper, the book is eye-opening about the victims of science and was a pleasurable read.
Rating:
Summary: a truly heartbeaking story of loss and identity
Review: Minik's story is one you will never forget. Kenn Harper has lived among the Inuit people for some 30 years, and his treatment of Minik's life story is both enthralling and starkly simple. There are many kind and cruel people who become involved in Minik's life, but only a few really cared about him as a person. Many were only interested in his people as "cultural artifacts" and as literal side-show attractions to make money. The book explores both sides of Minik's world: his homeland in Greenland, and that of his new life in America. The author effectively shows the dire consequences when these two worlds will not mesh together, and Minik is left as a man with no country, in the most literal sense of the word. Once you start reading his story, you won't want to put it down. Read it then recommend it to everyone you know!
Rating:
Summary: I've read much better
Review: Storyline is very intriguing, but the writing is a bit droll. It is also longer than necessary.
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