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Isserman Op-ed Appears in The New York Times

Contact: Vige Barrie
Phone: (315) 859-4623
August 11, 2008

Maurice Isserman
Maurice Isserman
The New York Times published an opinion piece written by Maurice Isserman, the James L. Ferguson Professor of History, titled "The Descent of Men" in its Sunday "Week in Review" section. Isserman wrote the op-ed following the recent avalanche in Pakistan on K2, the world's second-highest peak, that took the lives of 11 climbers. He compared this month's accident to one that occurred 55 years ago. In Isserman's retelling of the 1953 event, he revealed how teamwork had saved all but one of the climbers. This earlier expedition's rescue efforts and outcome stand in stark contrast with this year's climbers' behavior and tragic results. The op-ed also appeared in the International Herald Tribune and several other online publications.

"Himalayan mountaineering is an inherently dangerous pastime, and climbers are always at risk from the unexpected," wrote Isserman. "But mountaineering has become more dangerous in recent decades as the traditional expeditionary culture of the early- and mid-20th century, which had emphasized mutual responsibility and common endeavor, gave way to an ethos stressing individualism and self-preservation."

Isserman is the co-author of the forthcoming Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes published by Yale University Press (YUP) and available in book stores next month. Isserman and his co-author, University of Rochester Professor of History Stewart Weaver, "offer detailed, original accounts of the most significant climbs since the 1890s, and they compellingly evoke the social and cultural worlds that gave rise to those expeditions," according to YUP.