This is the first major history of the Himalaya: an epic story of peoples cultures and
adventures among the world's highest mountains. Spanning millennia from its earliest
inhabitants to the present conflicts over Tibet and Everest Himalaya is a soaring account of
resilience and conquest discovery and plunder oppression and enlightenment at the 'roof of
the world'. From all around the globe the unique and astonishing geography of the Himalaya has
attracted those in search of spiritual and literal elevation: pilgrims adventurers and
mountaineers seeking to test themselves among the world's most spectacular and challenging
peaks. But far from being wild and barren the Himalaya has throughout the ages been home to an
astonishing diversity of indigenous and local cultures as well as a crossroads for trade and
a meeting point and conflict zone for the world's superpowers. Here Jesuit missionaries
exchanged technologies with Tibetan Lamas Mongol Khans employed Nepali craftsmen Armenian
merchants exchanged musk and gold with Mughals. Here too the East India Company grappled for
dominance with China's emperors independent India has been locked in conflict with Mao's
Communists and their successors and the ideological confrontation of the Cold War is now being
buried beneath mass tourism and ecological transformation. Featuring scholars and tyrants
bandits and CIA agents go-betweens and revolutionaries Himalaya is a panoramic
character-driven history on the grandest but also the most human scale by far the most
comprehensive yet written encompassing geology and genetics botany and art and bursting with
stories of courage and resourcefulness.
