Reviews for Great Ascents: Narrative History of Mountaineering

The average rating for Great Ascents: Narrative History of Mountaineering based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-06-10 00:00:00 Greg Bowlus This is quite an interesting book, as much for its historical viewpoint as for its sometimes detailed descriptions of expeditions. Since the book was written in the 70's, it doesn't cover the recent history and developments of mountaineering but does give the reader a glimpse into the techniques, gear, and accomplishments of another era. One little example is its description of "jumars" (the little tension-locking devices that allow one to ascend a fixed rope) as a new and somewhat untested piece of equipment, when they are well-established today. It covers quite a wide variety of locales for mountaineering, though some of the chapters are more cursory than others. The chapters on the Alps, Mt. Everest, and Nanga Parbat are particularly good. It gives the reader a glimpse of a time when less was known about some of these mountains, of an era when you couldn't get cell phone reception on top of Everest (!!). But mostly, the pictures are fascinating. There are some truly striking ones that really show the conditions under which people have climbed in the mountains. It's well worth at least flipping through the book just for those.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-10-12 00:00:00 Shawn Albright This is a nuts and bolts tale about the development of anti tank guns. Sometimes the military's motto was the best anti tank weapon was a tank. Many times the courage of the men operating the anti tank weapon was stronger than the device itself. You might think from the countless designs that were tried and the endless copying of previous ideas that seemed to work, that something like the bazooka would have been a snap. During WWII the bazooka project had two officers from the army and a college professor working on it with no budget. The original bazooka had been successfully tested during WWI but the army had forgotten about it. In 1942 it had no priority and for it's debut it was an unannounced last minute addition to the list of anti tank weapons to be tried out that day. It was promptly put into mass production.