You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Né à Douvres en 1855, Albert Frederick Mummery se prend très jeune de passion pour la montagne. Son audace lui permettra de surmonter un physique chétif et de devenir l'un des meilleurs alpinistes de son époque. Mais c'est surtout sa conception d'une relation heureuse avec les sommets qui incite à revisiter son souvenir en une période où les témoignages sur l'alpinisme se résument trop souvent à des récits froidement techniques. Il reste cette lumière capable d'être vue comme une référence par les passionnés de montagne. Ceux pour lesquels la fréquentation du monde de l'altitude représente une histoire sentimentale bien plus qu'un faire-valoir.
Mountaineering has always demanded a fine balancing act between the adrenalin thrust of calculated risk-taking & the basic instinct for survival. The mountaineers of the Victorial golden age which opened up the Alps were men like Whymper & Mummery who tested this balance constantly as they pushed themselves further & further, first in the Alps & later in the Himalaya.
The sport of mountaineering was pioneered 150 years ago by a diverse cross-section of Victorians, following in the footsteps of earlier local explorers who ventured into the upper regions of ice and snow in search of game and minerals. By the early years of the 19th century, a growing interest in the study of geological and glaciological phenomena attracted scientific interest in the origins of the Alps. It was only in the latter half of that century when, by the 1850s, interest in the largly unexplored Alpine peaks began to capture the public imagination, and a sharp increase developed in the numbers of those who tried to scale them. So intense was the level of exploration and achievement t...
History meets high-altitude adventure This engaging analysis of twentieth-century imperialism takes early mountaineering beyond the realm of recreation. Vertical Margins sets Halford Mackinder's 1899 climb of Mt. Kenya, Annie Smith Peck's 1908 ascent of Huascaran in Bolivia, and John Baptiste Noel's filming of the 1924 British attempt on Mt. Everest in the larger historical context of American and British foreign policy and neo-imperialism. Reuben Ellis shows that mountain exploration reached far beyond the motivations of adrenaline-driven adventurers to an aggressive ideology of power and expansion that fed the "New Imperialism"--the end of the era of European empire-building and the beginnings of American dominance in world affairs. With so many mountains at the margins of European and American territorial and economic domains, mountaineering often overlapped with the motivations of empire; the earth's mountains came to be regarded as frontiers open to the full range of political, economic, and personal concerns that drove geographical exploration.
Discover the powerful story of one woman's lifelong dedication to adventure and determination to succeed, as featured in the brand new BBC2 documentary The Last Mountain 'I shed a tear as I read this . . . I'll admit that I did not do so when I originally heard of her death. The difference? This book' INDEPENDENT ______ Alison Hargeaves was one of the finest climbers of her generation. But in 1995, she died during a violent storm on K2. On her death she was vilified by media outrage that a wife and mother would take such extreme risks. This is the story of a woman with an astonishing determination to be the best that she could. A woman driven to succeed just to secure a future for herself and her family. ______ 'A riveting and incredibly moving story' Irish News 'Few realized the extent of her inner turmoil - and her courage. A very moving biography of an extraordinary woman with an extraordinary talent and determination' Daily Telegraph 'A sensitive and intelligent book . . . Rose and Douglas recuse Hargreaves from the crude distortions of those who wanted to vilify or venerate her' Sunday Telegraph
Nanga Parbat, The Killer Mountain, is the ninth highest mountain in the world and second highest peak in Pakistan. The Sanskrit word parvata means mountain rocks and nanga means bare, in reference to the exposed rock buttresses of the south face.The north face is equally intimidating but in contrast to the south face's steep rock and ice, the snowy north face is guarded by a broad barrier of seracs that extend the width of the mountain.
A sweeping history of mountaineering before Everest, and the epic human quest to reach the highest places on Earth. Whether in the name of conquest, science, or the divine, humans across the centuries have had myriad reasons to climb mountains. From the smoking volcanoes of South America to the great snowy ranges of the Himalaya, The White Ladder follows a cast of extraordinary characters—conquistadors and captains, scientists and surveyors, alpinists and adventurers—up the slopes of the world’s highest peaks. A masterpiece of edge-of-your-seat narrative history, The White Ladder describes the epic rise of mountaineering’s world altitude record, a story of ever higher climbs by figur...