"This book recounts periods of the author's residence in La Paz and Lima as well as several notable climbing expeditions, including the first ascent of Huascaran, the highest mountain in Peru" -- Bookseller's description.
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.
Explore the world of the hit game through the eyes of the lovable robot, Pathfinder, as he chronicles his journey throughout the various environs of the Outlands to interview his fellow Legends -- all in the hope of finally locating his mysterious creator. The rich history of Apex Legends is explained by the characters that helped to shape it, as are their unique bonds of competition and camaraderie.
Mountains have long inspired the wit and daring of the world's most fascinating explorers. In this definitive collection of mountain lore, Alan Weber exhibits forty-three essays by artists and adventurers to whom climbing was more a mission than a sport. Beginning with the fabled tale of Hannibal's Roman invasion-men, horses, and elephants in tow-through the hitherto impassable Alps, the accounts progress to recent descriptions of high-peaks mountain climbing in Mount Everest and the formidable K-2. Included among the earlier pieces are Petrarcha's introspective journey to the Windy Mount; William Windham's exploration of Montenvers and the "Sea of Ice" in 1741; and English artist-critic John Ruskin's essay on mountain climate and culture. Literary masters portray the idyllic and imperfect aspects of mountain life: the restoration poet Andrew Marvell offers a hymn to the Barrow hills, while poems from Shelley, Lord Byron, and Matthew Arnold praise the natural beauty and fresh air of the mountain crags. Because It's There pays homage to the spiritual introspection and respect for nature engendered by the looming mountain ranges that have demarcated territories, protecting villages and cities from invasion. The explorations these mountains have inspired have tested human endurance and mental strength. Alan Weber is a research fellow of the Institute for European Studies at Cornell University and a CEMERS Associate Fellow at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He is the editor and author of Nineteenth Century Science: A Selection of Original Texts, and Women Almanac Writers (Forthcoming). A long-time member of the Penn State Outing and Cornell Outing Clubs, he has rock and ice-climbed in the Adirondacks, Green and Shawangunk Mountains, and Mount Rainier.
Fanny Bullock Workman was a complicated and restless woman who defied the rigid Victorian morals she found as restrictive as a corset. With her frizzy brown hair tucked under a helmet, Workman was a force on and off the mountain. Instrumental in breaking the British stranglehold on Himalayan mountain climbing, this American woman climbed more peaks than any of her peers and became the first woman to map the far reaches of the Himalayas and the second to address the Royal Geographic Society of London, whose past members included Charles Darwin, Richard Francis Burton, and David Livingstone. Her books—replete with photographs, illustrations, and descriptions of meteorological conditions, glaciology, and the effect of high altitudes on humans—remained useful decades after their publication. Paving the way for a legion of female climbers, Workman's legacy lives on in scholarship prizes at Wellesley, Smith, Radcliffe, and Bryn Mawr.Author and journalist Cathryn J. Prince brings Fanny Bullock Workman to life, revealing how she navigated the male-dominated world of alpine clubs and adventure societies as nimbly as she navigated the deep crevasses and icy granite walls of the Himalayas. Queen of the Mountaineers is the story of one woman's role in science and exploration, breaking boundaries and charting frontiers for women everywhere.