2003. 320 pp, photos. A new analysis of the way mountains have been viewed throughout history, from the forbidding abode of demons and danger, through the modern lure of adventure, beauty and recreation. Includes a new analysis of Mallory and his obsession with Everest.
Every year millions of people are drawn to mountains: to climb, hike, photograph, admire. Yet, only three centuries ago, mountains were considered a repellent, mysterious form of landscape, to be avoided if at all possible. How is it that mountains, masses of rock and ice, have come to possess and exert such an extraordinary and sometimes fatal power of attraction over humans? Blending cultural history, meditation and personal memoir, Robert Macfarlane seeks to answer this question in 'Mountains of the Mind: How Desolate and Forbidding Heights Were Transformed into Experiences of Indomitable Spirit'. He explores how the science of geology transformed perceptions of wild landscape; he illuminates the enchantment of great height and the elemental beauties of snow, rock and ice. Macfarlane explains how Victorian adventurers and early geologists contributed to the dramatic revolution of perception concerning mountains. An avid and accomplished climber himself, he describes his own mountaineering experiences and recreates George Mallory's various expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s. New Hardcover with dust jacket.
