This was a bit of an impulse read for me. I was casually browsing at the library with my mother and getting a bit frustrated that nothing seemed to be calling out to me. Then my mom put this book in my bag and timidly suggested that I might like it. My mom and I have very different tastes altogether – we can never decide on a book/movie/show that we both like.
So, I started reading this book, prepared to hate it and ended up pleasantly surprised – reading it within a week (something that I usually don’t do with non-fiction).
About the Book
As tension steadily rose between European powers in the 1930s, a different kind of battle was already raging across the Himalayas. Teams of mountaineers from Great Britain, Nazi Germany, and the United States were all competing to be the first to climb the world’s highest peaks, including Mount Everest and K2. Unlike climbers today, they had few photographs or maps, no properly working oxygen systems, and they wore leather boots and cotton parkas. Amazingly, and against all odds, they soon went farther and higher than anyone could have imagined.
My Review
This book was so exciting and fast-moving that I didn’t feel like I was reading non-fiction at all. Ever since I read Into Thin Air, I have been meaning to read more books on climbing. However, most books focus on one mountain or adventure and are mostly written by mountaineers, which can make them a bit of a drag.
However, The World Beneath Their Feet focuses on so many expeditions, and so many characters that it reads more like a bunch of short stories. It is filled with all types of people – Nazis, patriotic Americans, champagne-swigging Frenchmen, and eccentric Brits all racing to conquer the Himalayas. All this variety made for a very interesting read.
It also helps that Ellsworth’s research seems exemplary. Not only does he detail the expeditions, but he also digs deep into the politics of the time, and provides enough background information to explain why one expedition succeeded while another failed.
He uses mountaineering terms liberally, many of which were unfamiliar to me. These words and phrases were however well-defined in an extensive glossary at the end of the book, so I didn’t have too much of a problem.
Overall, a really engaging account. You will love this if you are fond of historical true-life adventure stories.
