Peak experience: Isserman book in Pulitzer race
When it comes to books on Himalayan mountaineering, Maurice Isserman isn't the first one to the summit. Most notably, Jon Krakauer's 1997 Into Thin Air made the best-seller lists, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and won Time magazine's Book of the Year honors. But Krakauer's was a first-person account with the narrative pace of a thriller as it re-created a Mount Everest expedition-turned-disaster. Isserman and co-author Stewart Weaver have in many ways gone higher — and deeper — in Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes (Yale University Press, 2008). Isserman, the James L. Ferguson Professor of History, and Weaver, a professor of history at the University of Rochester, bring a disciplinary perspective and rigor to the topic that earlier books lacked. But the authors — both mountaineers and hikers themselves — also manage to capture the visceral excitement that accompanies a dizzying climb to the top of the world.
Fallen Giants is a comprehensive history of such climbs and offers detailed, original accounts of the most significant ascents since the 1890s. Isserman and Weaver also address the social and cultural forces that gave rise to such expeditions. As historians, they are able to trace the Himalaya — technically always a singular noun — as "a place of encounter between East and West since the middle centuries of the second millennium B.C.," considering incursions into the region by Alexander the Great in 326 B.C., Marco Polo in the 13th century and the first missionaries in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. But the real point of departure for the book is 19th-century British colonialism. "Himalayan mountaineering began," they write, "at the intersection of two distinct developments: the colonial exploration and appropriation of the Indian frontier, and the largely (though not exclusively) British invention of climbing as a form of recreation, sport and fellowship back in Alpine Europe."
Considering how the emerging belief in self-improvement and social ascent in 19th-century Britain may have driven the more literal attraction to upward mobility on mountainsides, the authors quote from Samuel Smiles' early self-help book, not surprisingly titled Self-help and published in 1859: "The road to success may be steep to climb, and it puts to the proof the energies of him who would reach the summit."
Sixty-five photographs and 15 maps complement the descriptions of climbs, including the first successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953 and less well-known tales of many other adventurers. The book recounts the experiences of such figures as Martin Conway, who led the first authentic Himalayan climbing expedition in 1892; Fanny Bullock Workman, the pioneer explorer of the Karakoram range; George Mallory, the romantic martyr of Mount Everest fame; Charlie Houston, who led American expeditions to K2 in the 1930s and 1950s; Ang Tharkay, the legendary Sherpa, and many others. Throughout, the authors discuss the effects of political and social change on the world of mountaineering, and they offer analysis of a culture that once emphasized teamwork and fellowship among climbers but now has been eclipsed by a scramble for individual fame and glory.
Fallen Giants has been nominated by Yale University Press for a 2009 Pulitzer Prize and has earned enthusiastic reviews as a peak experience not only for climbers and historians but for armchair adventurers as well. Reviewer Bruce Barcott, writing in The New York Times Book Review Sept. 28, praised it as "the book of a lifetime for its authors, an awe-inspiring work of history and storytelling" built on painstaking research across three continents. "Isserman and Weaver brilliantly present the complete picture — the political context, the changing social dynamics, the emergence of modern climbing technique — without losing sight of the need to entertain," Barcott wrote. The book has also won praise from experienced climbers such as Conrad Anker, a two-time Everest climber and author who visited Hamilton in September 2007 to talk with students in an Adventure Writing course taught by Isserman and Andrew Jillings, director of outdoor leadership. "Maurice Isserman and Stewart Weaver capture the essence of Himalayan climbing in an authentic voice," Anker said.
The glowing New York Times review was preceded by an opinion piece, "The Descent of Men," by Isserman in the Aug. 9 Times. There he discussed a recent avalanche on K2, the world's second-highest mountain, that took the lives of 11 climbers. Comparing the tragedy to a similar 1953 accident in which teamwork saved the lives of all but one climber, Isserman found an important, disturbing lesson. "Himalayan mountaineering is an inherently dangerous pastime, and climbers are always at risk from the unexpected," he wrote. "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."
