{"id":352,"date":"2016-02-02T20:21:56","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T03:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr467\/?p=352"},"modified":"2016-02-02T20:21:56","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T03:21:56","slug":"fallen-giants-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr467\/2016\/02\/02\/fallen-giants-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Fallen Giants"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is interesting drawing the parallels of the effects of the World Wars and the history of climbing and conquering the Himalayas in Fallen Giants<\/em>. \u00a0Of course there could be many other reasons, but perhaps the aftermath of the first World War was the driving force that led so many veterans to start conquering peaks in the Himalayas.\u00a0 Imperialism was Britain\u2019s fuel, as its been, but I still do not understand how Britain became such a climbing culture.\u00a0 Until 1947 India was ruled by Britain, so it is slightly\u00a0clear why so many peaks in the western range of the Himalayas were climbed first by the British.\u00a0 It seemed as though the Himalayan range was England\u2019s playground, as opposed to the French\/Swiss alps and Chamonix being the rest of Europe\u2019s playground.\u00a0 Eventually mountaineering became a national competition, and could still be seen today, but in the early 1920\u2019s were nations still running on patriotism from the war? – It certainly seems so. \u00a0The shift of conquering the tallest peaks to the number of peaks to the hardest and most technical peaks is what really made mountaineering a sport.\u00a0 It is also interesting to notice how few and how late Americans started traveling to the Himalayas.<\/p>\n

Shifting over to the individuals now, it was interesting to follow all the characters that made first ascents.\u00a0 I enjoyed reading into more of Mallory\u2019s character, but he sounded like a pretty selfish guy with a huge ego. \u201cBecause it\u2019s there,\u201d come on, so is Mars, the center of the Earth, and your family.\u00a0 I do respect his ability to know when to turn back, being so close to the summit.\u00a0 Two other characters that particularly stuck out of the book for me was Martin Conway and Maurice Wilson.\u00a0 Martin Conway wrote a lot about mountaineering and his work sounded pretty enjoyable to read being not just about mountains but other expeditions as well. \u00a0He seemed to have a pretty impressive alpine record, was well respected, and just an interesting person.\u00a0 Maurice Wilson\u2019s story on the other hand, was pretty brief, and shows how mountaineering is not something to take lightly.\u00a0 With no flying experience and no mountaineering experience his life\u2019s purpose was to \u201cbuy an airplane, fly it into India, crash it on the lower slopes of Everest, and prove his theory of man\u2019s infinite capacity by climbing the mountain alone,\u201d and eventually dying.<\/p>\n

I was surprised to see how early expeditions started using Sherpa\u2019s and how many.\u00a0 There are still plenty more pages to cover, but it would have been nice if Isserman and Weaver dove a little deeper in this as Sherpa\u2019s have a history of mountaineering as well.\u00a0 Even during the early 1920\u2019s they were under paid and feeling used.\u00a0 They were lightly mentioned in the expeditions and it would have been nice to have seen the national competition of climbing in the Himalaya\u2019s through the lens of Sherpa\u2019s.\u00a0 It would answer a lot of the bigger questions and give a deeper meaning as to what drove certain nations to the Himalayan range.\u00a0 Why the tallest peaks first for so many mountaineers? \u00a0Why not climb as many peaks one can in the Alps or in the Andes?\u00a0 Right now in mountaineering I feel there is a shift to climb the most remote mountains, for example in Myanmar. \u00a0I am curios to see what happens in the history of mountaineering when the most remote mountains have been climbed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is interesting drawing the parallels of the effects of the World Wars and the history of climbing and conquering the Himalayas in Fallen Giants. \u00a0Of course there could be many other reasons, but perhaps the aftermath of the first World War was the driving force that led so many veterans to start conquering peaks…<\/p>\n

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