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Himalaya Spiral-Bound | 2022-11-08

John Keay

$29.39 - Free Shipping
A groundbreaking new look at Himalaya and how climate change is recasting one of the world's most unique geophysical, historical, environmental, and social regions.

"Excellent . . . packed with information and interesting anecdotes." --The Washington Post

More rugged and elevated than any other zone on earth, Himalaya embraces all of Tibet, plus six of the world's eight major mountain ranges and nearly all its highest peaks. It contains around 50,000 glaciers and the most extensive permafrost outside the polar region. Thirty-five percent of the global population depends on Himalaya's freshwater for crop irrigation, protein, and, increasingly, hydropower. Over an area nearly as big as Europe, the population is scattered, often nomadic and always sparse. Many languages are spoken, some are written, and few are related. Religious allegiances are equally diverse. The region is also politically fragmented, its borders belonging to multiple nations with no unity in how to address the risks posed by Himalaya's environment, including a volatile, near-tropical latitude in which temperatures climb from subzero at night to 80°F by day.
Himalaya has drawn an illustrious succession of admirers, from explorers, surveyors, and athletes, to botanists and zoologists, ethnologists and geologists, missionaries and mountaineers. It now sits seismically unstable, as tectonic plates continue to shift and the region remains gridlocked in a global debate surrounding climate change. Himalaya is historian John Keay's striking case for this spectacular but endangered corner of the planet as one if its most essential wonders. Without an otherworldly ethos and respect for its confounding, utterly fascinating features, Keay argues, Himalaya will soon cease to exist.

Publisher: Macmillan
Original Binding: Hardcover with dust jacket
Pages: 432 pages
ISBN-10: 1632869438
Item Weight: 1.7 lbs
Dimensions: 7.2 x 1.6 x 11.1 inches
"Excellent . . . both Himalaya and Erika Fatland's High are ideal books for armchair travelers, packed with information and entertaining anecdotes. You will learn a lot from them--though not, of course, the way to reach fabled Tralla La. That must remain a secret." --Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

"I started this book thinking a better understanding of Himalaya would merely augment my knowledge of the area. But I ended believing I'd stumbled upon a wholly unique, hidden region with a surprisingly central role in our history, especially regarding climate change and the religious impulses that buttress its natives. It's also a place that could not be subdued by Europeans. It stands apart, mystified and demystified in Keay's Himalaya, challenging our assumptions about the planet and its peoples." --Washington Independent Review of Books

"A fascinating assemblage of anecdotes, crisscrossing deep gorges and mountain passes, visiting exotic retreats with unfamiliar names, and leaping back and forth across the centuries, true to the unique mix of nature and culture that is Himalaya . . . Keay's narrative, compellingly complex as the Himalaya itself, touches on all these subjects, offering, as if from highest ground, exhilarating vistas in every direction." --Natural History Magazine

"A singularly unique and seminal study…impressively informative, exceptionally well written, and thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation. An inherently fascinating and thought-provoking read from cover to cover, Himalaya is especially and unreservedly recommended for community, college, and university library collections. It should be noted for the personal reading lists for anyone with an interest in Central Asian History." --Midwest Book Review

"Keay's panoramic vision and multidisciplinary approach serves the function of all great historical writing. It illuminates the present." --The Boston Globe on INDIA: A HISTORY
"Exquisitely written . . . In fluid, effortless prose, Keay moves energetically through the vicissitudes of China's dynastic past." --The Guardian on CHINA: A HISTORY

John Keay has been writing about Himalaya since the 1960s. He wrote the two-volume Explorers of the Western Himalayas and a major BBC documentary series on the kingdom; other works include India: A History and China: A History. The Royal Society for Asian Affairs awarded him a medal for "literary contribution to Asian studies" in 2009. He has been a Royal Literary Fund fellow since 2010. Himalaya, his twenty-second book, will be the summation of a lifetime's study. He lives in Scotland.