{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.027765912003417343, 'fraction_numerical': 0.003844510892780863, 'mean_word_length': 4.899244332493703, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Book Review: The Third Voyage of Martin Frobisher to Baffin Island 1578

Elizabethan age, he has written a biography not a history. It is not his task to inform the reader as to the significance of his extensive research and knowledge for our understanding of the past, and he offers few signposts. McDermott explicitly rejects any assessment of Frobisher alongside Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins or Grenville, asserting but not establishing that any attempt at group analysis "is entirely spurious." [426] Most troubling, however, is the author's interpretation of Frobisher's every action at each step in his career according to an overarching pattern. With a subject who has left no sizeable archive, for whom many years and events are undocumented, and where a biographer often must interpret character and motivation from actions alone, this is highly suspect. The past, as known to us, is far too pliable to place much confidence in an account peppered with the words "must" and "may." Not only does McDermott explain all actions according to his formula, he at times appears to concoct events because they advance his interpretation (one example is the description of the early alienation between Frobisher and his uncle and patron, Sir John Yorke, which appears to have no evidential foundation but which is necessary for the story). Our author also cannot suppress idle speculation: the failure to produce offspring with his first wife renders it possible that Frobisher "was infertile, perhaps even impotent." [ 46], while the possibility that Frobisher was homosexual is later raised, only to be dismissed in the same, valueless, sentence. Some errors, especially in dates, have slipped by the proofreader and may confuse the unwary. These flaws are to be regretted, for McDermott is a learned author whose evidence and views deserve attention. In a sense, the two publications under review bring to a close the heady flurry of scholarly attention inspired by the Meta Incognita project. It is thus perhaps appropriate to offer a final assessment. We now know probably as much as will ever be unearthed on the who, the when, the how, and the why of that historical Arctic enterprise, and that indeed is a great deal. What continues to demand attention is the "so what" question: what is the significance of Frobisher, and of his voyages?