Customer Reviews:
 150 glorious years in 250 pages January 20, 2007
S. J. Pardoe (NORTHWICH, Cheshire United Kingdom)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is a masterly compilation of the AC's 150-year history, told through the achievements of its illustrious members and others, particularly in the two 'golden ages' of Alpine-style mountaineering. The first, in the mid 19th century, was epitomised by Whymper, Stephen, Mummery and others, who hired the best local Guides and make the best use of them, eventually climbing as unassisted Amateurs. Between the Wars, Shipton, Tilman and others explored the greater ranges, unsupported, for months on end. The second age has been since WWII, with landmark ascents of the 8,000 metre peaks, first Annapurna, then Everest and Kangchenjunga, the only one to be first climbed by Britons (Band himself, with Joe Brown). A new generation of British Alpinists such as Bonington, Boardman & Tasker, Fowler and Venables have continued the tradition, while finding new ways to expand the boundaries of the possible.
George Band's book is meticulously researched, beautifully illustrated, and well-written, by a man now well into his 70s. After being called up as the youngest member of John Hunt's 1953 team, he got to know and climb with many of the world's finest Alpinists, and his personal experience shines through the text. Inevitably, stirring stories have been edited for space - Herzog's Annapurna epic gets only one page - but the book achieves a good editorial balance, and is refreshingly free from jargon. Among many rarely-seen illustrations is a charming study of Hunt in conversation with Geoffrey Winthrop Young.
There's the odd slip - Reinhold Messner is variously categorised as West German (p155) or Austrian (p192), whereas he was born in the South Tyrol, part of Italy. Otherwise, the book delighted me, as I am sure it will thousands of 'armchair mountaineers', not to mention those whose names grace its pages.
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