Everest: Eighty Years of Triumph and Tragedy - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0898867800 ISBN 13: 9780898867800

Publisher: Mountaineers Books, 2001

Synopsis

* Updated to include all the major events since the first edition was published in 1993
* Offers an up-close-and-personal view of the world's highest mountain
* Lavishly illustrated with stunning photographs

For eighty years, Mount Everest has been the ultimate symbol of human endeavor. Ever since the first attempt in 1921, the world's highest mountain has served as an arena where mountaineers have played out their dreams and fears, bringing triumph and tragedy in almost equal measure.

The dramas of Everest have inspired some of mountaineering's finest writing and photography. In this sumptuous anthology, climbers recount and portray their struggles to attain the summit, the moments of success and defeat, exultation and despair.

All the great landmarks in Everest's history are represented. The pioneering expeditions of the 1920s and 1930s are recounted by climbers such as George Mallory and Eric Shipton. Sir Edmund Hillary tells how he and Tenzing Norgay became the first to reach the summit, via the South Col, in 1953, while Tom Hornbein describes the bravura West Ridge ascent by the Americans in 1963. Chris Bonington, Reinhold Messner, Doug Scott, and many more of mountaineering's most celebrated names also appear in this definitive collection.

First published to wide acclaim in 1993, the anthology has been expanded to include the 1990s, perhaps the most dramatic decade of all. Included in the new edition are passages describing the tragedies and disasters of 1996, including an excerpt from Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and the extraordinary discovery of the body of George Mallory by American climbers in 1999.

The book also contains Peter Gilman's own accounts of some of the mountain's most controversial episodes, such as the disputed Chinese ascent of 1960 and the enigma of the yeti. There are comprehensive, updated appendixes, including a full list of every ascent. The outcome is one of the finest mountaineering anthologies ever produced: a stirring assertion of the audacity of the human spirit in the face of challenging and perilous odds, presenting both the how of mountaineering and the why.

About this title

Product Description:

Hardcover

Review:

A large format publication, with stunning colour photography, Everest--Eighty Years of Triumph and Tragedy recounts the stories of the men and women who have set out to conquer the world's most famous and forbidding mountain--one that forms part of the language with which we understand human courage and ambition.

The book was first published in 1993 and the 2001 edition has been completely updated and now includes, amongst other reports, eye-witness accounts of the widely-publicised tragedy of 1996--when six climbers/clients from one of the new "commercial" expeditions were killed--and the discovery by a US expedition in 1999 of the frozen remains of George Mallory, lost for 75 years on the North Face.

"As I sat next to him, I thought, this man was a fellow climber. We shared the same goals and aspirations, the same joys and sorrows. Our lives were motivated by the same elemental force. When I thought of what a valiant effort George had made ... I was flooded with a sense of awe." --Conrad Anker, part of the team that found Mallory.

The book reflects on all the great historical conquests, most famously the triumphant "British" expedition of 1953--when New Zealand bee keeper Edmund Hillary and Indian/Nepalese co-climber Tenzing Norgay became the first men on the summit--but gives equal weight to those who tried and failed, mapping the challenge for those who came afterwards. For the most part, editor Peter Gillman lets the mountaineers tell their own stories--Mallory's intimate, touching letters home; the photographic self-portrait Bruce Herrod took on the summit on May 24, 1996, eleven months before his body and camera were found on the Hillary Step; Tenzing's final word on the great mystery of "who was first?".

A fascinating exposition of why the mountain claims a unique space in both the physical and psychological geography of the planet. --Alex Hankin

About this edition

• Publisher: Mountaineers Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0898867800
• ISBN 13: 9780898867800
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240
• Editor: Gillman Leni, Gillman Peter