Craig Storti
Autor de The Art of Crossing Cultures
Sobre El Autor
Craig Storti is founder and director of Communicating Across Cultures, a Washington, DC-based intercultural communication training and consulting firm. A former Peace Corps volunteer, he is the author of several books including Why Travel Matters, The Hunt for Mount Everest, Americans at Work, mostrar más Understanding the World's Cultures, The Art of Coming Home, Cross-Cultural Dialogues, and Speaking of India. storti has been featured in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. mostrar menos
Obras de Craig Storti
Old World, New World: Bridging Cultural Differences : Britain, France, Germany, and the U.S (2001) 11 copias
The Art of Doing Business Across Cultures: 10 Countries, 50 Mistakes, and 5 Steps to Cultural Competence (2017) 6 copias
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Fecha de nacimiento
- 1947
- Género
- male
- País (para mapa)
- USA
- Lugares de residencia
- Westminster, Maryland, USA
Miembros
Reseñas
Premios
También Puede Gustarte
Estadísticas
- Obras
- 14
- Miembros
- 561
- Popularidad
- #44,552
- Valoración
- 4.0
- Reseñas
- 10
- ISBNs
- 48
- Idiomas
- 1
The average reader may know a little about the 20th/21st century story of Everest... the summit conquered, the lives claimed, the burgeoning waste and crowding problems. A reader may know about George Mallory, one of the first and most famous climbers who lost his life on the mountain in the 1920's. Most histories of Everest would begin with him.
But in a fascinating rewind, this book treats Mallory as the end of the story, a story decades in the making, in which Everest is all but invisible to human eyes.
And it all begins with math. For decades, no Westerner could approach the mountain closer than about 100 miles due to the political restrictions enforced by Nepal and Tibet. And it's so remote that very few Easterners had ever gotten close to it either. From Darjeeling, India, on a clear day, the tip of Mount Everest could be seen, although it looks lower from there than other mountains due to the curvature of the earth. This book describes the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, a British project that took most of the 19th century to complete.
The calculations that led to the discovery, the frustrating attempts to get closer, the clandestine forays into Tibet, the fights and bloodshed that changed the political landscape, the countless feats of human strength and derring-do, and the humanizing of those early explorers all make for absolutely compelling reading. (I still want to know how close Alexander Kellas got in 1913!) The Googling kept me up late at night.
The book focuses mostly on the all-consuming goal of getting to the mountain, with all the bravery and persistence that required. But it also drops in a few thought-provoking observations about why these men were so driven to reach it. The spirit of exploration ("we climb it because it's there") was at its zenith, but there were some darker philosophies at work too. The author notes that it was "imperial hubris" that supported the British in their attitude that they must be the finders, climbers, and conquerors of the mountain. And one of the most ardent explorers described it as an effort to dispel "the ridiculous idea of the littleness of man." Yes, there's much to think about here.
I could have done with a little condensing of the political context, but this book was well written and gripping throughout. Easily one of the best works of nonfiction I've read!
Thanks to NetGalley and Nicholas Brealey US for this advance review copy!… (más)