When Britannia Ruled the Slopes

Wade Davis’s Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest is a departure for the explorer-writer. A Harvard-trained ethnobotanist, Davis began his career as a plant explorer before his investigations into folk preparations linked to the creation of zombies in Haiti resulted in his bestselling The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist’s Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombis and Magic and a film spinoff. More recently, Davis has become internationally known as a passionate defender of tribal culture, exemplified by his Massey Lectures, published as The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World. None of this immediately impresses one as foundational work for a book like Into the Silence, which is not focused on the Sherpa or Hunza people, or Himalayan plants, but rather is a sweeping, meticulous and arresting account of the early British efforts to conquer Mount...