EVEREST

This is the story of how Edmund Hillary, a white New Zealand beekeeper, and Tenzing Norgay, a Tibetan yak herder, became the first two men in recorded history to reach the top of Mount Everest.

In addition to presenting the childhoods of these two men and their mutual obsession with summiting the highest mountain in the world, the book traces the history of European expeditions to Everest, the triumphant climb itself, and the effects the victory had on Hillary’s and Norgay’s adult lives. Throughout, Stewart emphasizes that reaching the top was a group effort involving many more men than are usually credited. The text is accompanied by Todd-Stanton’s dazzling illustrations that subtly and effectively incorporate relevant facts. Unfortunately, despite its engaging tone and Norgay’s prominent billing, the book’s historical perspective is distinctly colonial. The narrative spends considerably more time on Hillary’s history than on Norgay’s, and it skims over major world events that would have affected the geopolitics of the climb. It makes only passing mention of South Asian independence struggles and provides no analysis as to why, after the expedition, Hillary was knighted and Norgay was not. Furthermore, the text does not acknowledge the fact that the expedition was limited entirely to men even though women may have had the skills to accompany the party: Indeed, readers learn that Norgay married a Sherpa woman, whose absence from expeditions to Everest before her untimely death goes unexplained.

This well-illustrated text is undermined by its unwillingness to engage with colonial history or systemic sexism.