Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest

By Wade Davis

Book Overview

The definitive story of the British adventurers who survived the trenches of World War I and went on to risk their lives climbing Mount Everest. On June 6, 1924, two men set out from a camp perched at 23,000 feet on an ice ledge just below the lip of Everest's North Col. George Mallory, thirty-seven, was Britain's finest climber. Sandy Irvine was a twenty-two-year-old Oxford scholar with little previous mountaineering experience. Neither of them returned. Drawing on more than a decade of prodigious research, bestselling author and explorer Wade Davis vividly re-creates the heroic efforts of Mallory and his fellow climbers, setting their significant achievements in sweeping historical context: from Britain's nineteen-century imperial ambitions to the war that shaped Mallory's generation. Theirs was a country broken, and the Everest expeditions emerged as a powerful symbol of national redemption and hope. In Davis's rich exploration, he creates a timeless portrait of these remarkable men and their extraordinary times.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375708154
• ISBN13: 9780375708152
• Release Date: October 2012
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 688 Pages
• Weight: 1.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.2" x 8.0"