Review by Galen Rowell in The American Alpine Journal 1975.

“What a relief to see a mountaineering history book by an active climber!'' Doug Scott’s big wall climbing has taken him to the Alps, Baffin Island, the Hindu Kush, Everest and Yosemite. This considerable cosmopolitan energy has been channeled into an enormous project: the world history of big wall climbing.

Historically, big wall climbing has been an explosion: a sudden, forcible expansion of a substance. Few realize how quickly this has happened. To write a paragraph on each important climb would be to spend a few pages up to 1960 and several volumes up to the present. 

Scott reverses this. He spends much of the book early, Alpine, pre-big-wall climbs. He helps us understand intuitively what processes led to bigger climbs. Although incomplete in some areas. Scott’s book is a must for all who are interested in mountaineering history. It fills an open chasm in mountain literature.”