Awards

• Winner of Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2012

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<p> Davis's book, ten years in the writing, is highly absorbing narrative . . . A heroic attempt to capture the scale of the undertaking to conquer the highest mountain on earth. <br>--Michael Jeffries, The Newark Star-Ledger <br> A magnificent, audacious venture . . . Into the Silence is quite unlike any other mountaineering book. It not only spins a gripping Boy's Own yarn about the early British expeditions to Everest, but investigates how the carnage of the trenches bled into a desire for redemption at the top of the world. Many of those Himalayan explorers, including Mallory, had served in the corpse-ridden fields of northern France. Indeed, of the 26 men who climbed in the three expeditions, 20 had seen front-line action. Six had been severely wounded, two others hospitalized by disease at the front, and one treated for shell shock. All had seen dozens of friends and countrymen die. For these veterans, the author argues, death had lost its power . . . At its heart, Inton

<p> Davis's book, ten years in the writing, is highly absorbing narrative . . . A heroic attempt to capture the scale of the undertaking to conquer the highest mountain on earth. <br>--Michael Jeffries, The Newark Star-Ledger <br> A magnificent, audacious venture . . . Into the Silence is quite unlike any other mountaineering book. It not only spins a gripping Boy's Own yarn about the early British expeditions to Everest, but investigates how the carnage of the trenches bled into a desire for redemption at the top of the world. Many of those Himalayan explorers, including Mallory, had served in the corpse-ridden fields of northern France. Indeed, of the 26 men who climbed in the three expeditions, 20 had seen front-line action. Six had been severely wounded, two others hospitalized by disease at the front, and one treated for shell shock. All had seen dozens of friends and countrymen die. For these veterans, the author argues, death had lost its power . . . At its heart, Intog

The First World War, the worst calamity humanity has ever inflicted on itself, still reverberates in our lives. In its immediate aftermath, a few young men who had fought in it went looking for a healing challenge, and found it far from the Western Front. In recreating their astonishing adventure, Wade Davis has given us an elegant meditation on the courage to carry on. <br>--George F. Will <br> I was captivated. Wade Davis has penned an exceptional book on an extraordinary generation. They do not make them like that any more. And there would always only ever be one Mallory. From the pathos of the trenches to the inevitable tragedies high on Everest this is a book deserving of awards. Monumental in its scope and conception it nevertheless remains hypnotically fascinating throughout. A wonderful story tinged with sadness. <br>--Joe Simpson, author of Touching the Void <br> Into the Silence is utterly fascinating, and grippingly well-written. With extraordinary skill Wade Da

<p> A meticulous recreation . . . The death in 1912 of Captain Scott and his companions in the Antarctic set a precedent of sacrifice for the generation of young British men who, a few years later, would hurl themselves into the maelstrom of the Great War. That Scott's expedition was, according to later accounts, doomed by incompetent leadership only makes its failure seem more prophetic. Now, in Wade Davis's magnificent new book, the remaining goal of imperial exploration is seen as an outcome of--and response to--the First World War. While Scott's expedition was, in some ways, an exercise in heroic futility, the conquest of Mount Everest could help to exorcise the massed ghosts of the dead. <br>--Geoff Dyer, The Guardian <br> A magnificent, audacious venture . . . Into the Silence is quite unlike any other mountaineering book. It not only spins a gripping Boy's Own yarn about the early British expeditions to Everest, but investigates how the carnage of the trenches bled into

Author Information

Wade Davis is the best-selling author of more than a dozen books, including The Serpent and the Rainbow and One River, and is an award-winning anthropologist. He currently holds the post of National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and divides his time between Washington, D.C., and northern British Columbia.

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