The Mammoth Book Of How It Happened Everest

Begining with the 1921 attempt on the summit of Everest through to the disasters of the 1990s, this work features 30 white-knuckle accounts of climbing endeavour on the world's highest mountain, with all the tragedy and triumph of humankind's striving for the top of the world, by those who know the "Death Zone" best - the climbers of Everest themselves. Yet this is more than a cherry-picking of great true and exhilarating memoirs of Everest. Included are the history of the conquest of Everest, and all the natural and cruel beauty of Chomolungma "The Mother Goddess of the World".

This selection of the very best writing on Everest begins with the first attempts and continues, via Mallory's failed bid and Hillary and Tenzing's triumph, to the disasters of recent years. It features 35 white-knuckle accounts of climbing on the world's highest mountain, with all the tragedy and triumph of humankind's striving for the top of the world, by those who know the 'Death Zone' best - the climbers themselves. But this is much more than just the best of exhilarating first-hand accounts of climbing on Everest. It includes the full history of the conquest of Everest, and provides an evocative portrait of the cruel, natural beauty of Chomolungma, 'The Mother Goddess of the World'.

Begining with the 1921 attempt on the summit of Everest through to the disasters of the 1990s, this work features 30 white-knuckle accounts of climbing endeavour on the world's highest mountain, with all the tragedy and triumph of humankind's striving for the top of the world, by those who know the DeathZone best - the climbers of Everest themselves.

Native Americans make up less than one per cent of the total US population but represent half the nation's languages and cultures. Here, in one grand sweep, is the full story of Native American society, culture and religion. Here is everything from the land-based spirituality of their early creation myths and the late rise of Indian Pride, to the 88 uses to which the Sioux put the flesh and bones of the buffalo and the practice of berdache (men adopted as women). The book offers a chronological history of America's indigenous peoples. It covers their dramatic early entry into North America, out of the now submerged continent of Beringia, then in more recent times the 'forgotten wars' of the 16th and 17th centuries, which wiped many tribes from the face of the East Coast, and finally describes to the last struggles of the Cheyenne and the Comanche. Celebrating these peoples' way of life rather than focusing narrowly on the manner of their genocide, it does not ignore uncomfortable facts of the Amerindian past - including the cannibalism believed to have been practised by some tribes and the Native Americans' part in the decimation of North America's buffalo herds.

The spectre of the Great War still haunts us. No other conflict so dramatically illustrates the waste of life, and the slaughter of innocents, as that of 1914-18. And none has so dramatically shaped the modern world: the Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the break-up of Empire, the supremacy of America and World War II all stem from the four years of the 'war to end all wars'. Here is the eye-witness chronicle of that war, from the trenches of Flanders to the staff rooms of the Imperial Germany Army, from T. E. Lawrence in the desert to the 'Red Baron' in the air, from Land Girls in England to German U-boat crews in the Atlantic, it leaves nothing out. And if all the horror of the war fought by the Tommies in the trenches is captured, so too are the machinations of the 'top brass' and politicians.

Offers thirty-two firsthand accounts of the experience of climbing Everest from contributors including George Mallory, Tenzing Norgay, Reinhold Messner, and Maria Coffey.