Into The Silence

The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest

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WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE

A monumental work of history, biography and adventure - the First World War, Mallory and Mount Everest

'The price of life is death'

For Mallory, as for all of his generation, death was but 'a frail barrier that men crossed, smiling and gallant, every day'. As climbers they accepted a degree of risk unimaginable before the war. What mattered now was how one lived, and the moments of being alive.

While the quest for Mount Everest may have begun as a grand imperial gesture, it ended as a mission of revival for a country and a lost generation bled white by war. In a monumental work of history and adventure, Davis asks not whether George Mallory was the first to reach the summit of Everest, but rather why he kept climbing on that fateful day.

Maybe the prime minister should read it
Stephen Frears, Guardian

Into the Silence succeeds not only because Davis's research has been prodigious, but because every sentence has been struck with conviction, every image evoked with fierce reverence – for the heartbreaking twilight era, for the magnificent resilience of its survivors, for their mission, for Mallory, for his mountain. An epic worthy of its epic
Caroline Alexander, author of The Endurance and The War That Killed Achilles

About Wade Davis

Wade Davis is a multi award-winning writer and acclaimed photographer whose work has taken him from the Amazon to Tibet, Africa to Australia, Polynesia to the Arctic. Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society from 2000 to 2013, he is currently Professor of Anthropology and the BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. He is the bestselling author of 22 books, including One River, The Wayfinders and Into the Silence, which was awarded the 2012 Samuel Johnson Prize. In 2016, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada. In 2018 he became an Honorary Citizen of Colombia.

Details

Imprint: Vintage
Published: 04/10/2012
ISBN: 9780099563839
Length: 672 pages
Dimensions: 216mm x 50mm x 135mm
Weight: 690g
Price: £18.99

All editions

Paperback 2012
Ebook 2011

Into The Silence

The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest

Format:

Buy the book from:

Maybe the prime minister should read it

I was enthralled by Wade Davis’s Into the Silence, an account of three failed Everest expeditions leading up to the death of Mallory in 1924, which brilliantly places those feats of endurance in the context of British imperialism and the psychological aftermath of the First World War

[An] epic story

I was captivated. Wade Davis has penned an exceptional book on an extraordinary generation. From the pathos of the trenches to the inevitable tragedies high on Everest this is a book deserving of awards

Powerful and profound, a moving, epic masterpiece of literature, history and hope

Brilliantly engrossing...a superb book... At once a group biography of remarkable characters snatched from oblivion, an instant classic of mountaineering literature, a study in imperial decline and an epic of exploration

Magnificent...impressive...a vivid account

A magnificent, rigorously researched account of the expeditions that set out to regain glory for an empire in decline but, instead, created some of the most enduring legends of the twentieth century

Into the Silence is a breathtaking triumph. An astonishing piece of research, it is also intensely moving, evoking the courage, chivalry, and sacrifice that drove Mallory and his companions through the war and to ever greater heights

About Wade Davis

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