Awards

• Winner of J.I. Staley Prize, School of American Research 2004 (United States)
• Winner of School of American Research J.I. Staley Prize 2004
• Winner of School of American Research J.I. Staley Prize 2004.

Overview

Full Product Details

9780691074481

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Reviews

[Ortner's book] written so clearly and with such evident fascination with the subject that it's more than just accessible to lay readers: it's captivating. I've had anthropology texts put me to sleep right after morning coffee, but this one kept me awake at night. -- Michael Parfit, New York Times Book Review Having lived and worked with the Sherpas for more than thirty years as a serious anthropologist, Ortner is in an ideal position to introduce the other, unknown culture involved with Himalayan climbing... Fascinating. -- Pico Iyer, New York Review of Books The book brings us a much richer understanding of the cultural partnership underpinning Himalayan mountaineering... Life and Death on Mt. Everest is a swift and canny guide to this uncharted territory. -- Alison Demos, Lingua Franca Sherry Ortner reveals the details of Sherpa life on and off the mountain and sweeps away a century of misguided characterizations... [This] book is one of those rare crossover works, a scholarly exploration of Sherpa culture that the lay reader (climber or not) will find utterly fascinating. -- Newsday [A] first-rate study... [Ortner] is an intelligent and fair-minded scholar who has combed the mountain literature and fused it with what she observed in the field. -- David Craig, Los Angeles Times A remarkable display of agile fieldwork, sensitive to all the distinctive shadings that compose [the] subject... Ortner arrives at a complex but cohesive portrait of the century-long Sherpa association with the mountaineers... -- Kirkus Reviews This is not another nail-biting saga of alpine disaster, but rather--finally--an authoritative study of the group that has made summiting 8,000-meter Himalayan peaks possible for Westerners... Ortner retells the Everest story from the Sherpa point of view... -- Outside A fascinating examination of the world of the Sherpas... [Ortner's] book is an eye-opening, behind-the-scenes look at mountaineering. -- Library Journal A well-written and thorough account...and the only book on this topic. -- Choice A fascinating new study of the interaction between Western climbers and Sherpas... -- Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times

[Ortner's book] written so clearly and with such evident fascination with the subject that it's more than just accessible to lay readers: it's captivating. I've had anthropology texts put me to sleep right after morning coffee, but this one kept me awake at night. -- Michael Parfit New York Times Book Review Having lived and worked with the Sherpas for more than thirty years as a serious anthropologist, Ortner is in an ideal position to introduce the other, unknown culture involved with Himalayan climbing... Fascinating. -- Pico Iyer New York Review of Books The book brings us a much richer understanding of the cultural partnership underpinning Himalayan mountaineering... Life and Death on Mt. Everest is a swift and canny guide to this uncharted territory. -- Alison Demos Lingua Franca Sherry Ortner reveals the details of Sherpa life on and off the mountain and sweeps away a century of misguided characterizations... [This] book is one of those rare crossover works, a scholarly exploration of Sherpa culture that the lay reader (climber or not) will find utterly fascinating. Newsday [A] first-rate study... [Ortner] is an intelligent and fair-minded scholar who has combed the mountain literature and fused it with what she observed in the field. -- David Craig Los Angeles Times A remarkable display of agile fieldwork, sensitive to all the distinctive shadings that compose [the] subject... Ortner arrives at a complex but cohesive portrait of the century-long Sherpa association with the mountaineers... Kirkus Reviews This is not another nail-biting saga of alpine disaster, but rather--finally--an authoritative study of the group that has made summiting 8,000-meter Himalayan peaks possible for Westerners... Ortner retells the Everest story from the Sherpa point of view... Outside A fascinating examination of the world of the Sherpas... [Ortner's] book is an eye-opening, behind-the-scenes look at mountaineering. Library Journal A well-written and thorough account...and the only book on this topic. Choice A fascinating new study of the interaction between Western climbers and Sherpas... -- Susan Spano Los Angeles Times

Anthropologist Ortner's (Columbia) ethnographic immersion into Sherpa life and how it has been affected by the international climbing culture is a remarkable display of agile fieldwork, sensitive to all the distinctive shadings that compose her subject. In the valleys and foothills of the Everest massif live the Sherpas, who for the last 100 years have had their remote outpost unsettled by the influx of mountaineering expeditions run by sahibs (a Sherpa term Ortner uses both ironically and as a handy tag). In an effort to gain a sense of how the two groups interrelate - how much each group's perceptions of the other have validity and in what context - Ortner draws upon a substantial arsenal of ethnographic theory. The work of Clifford Geertz is brought to bear on both camps' intentions and desires; so too Edward Said's notion of orientalism and how it erects ideologically warped imagery. Althusser, Foucault, James Clifford, and Marshall Sahlins help her clear away the fog of colonial complicity and the asymmetries conjured by power and wealth: though she can't slip into the Sherpa perspective like an old pair of shoes for reasons of cultural conditioning, she is ever attentive to it. Ortner is most interested in the nexus of the mountaineers' and Sherpas' values, beliefs, and ideals, and the various relationships that were spawned from their commingling, which often unwittingly reinforced misconceptions. In the records of the mountaineers, she seeks among the representations the allusions within the illusions, measuring the biases and fantasies against the touchstone of the cumulative record of high-quality ethnographic work. Ortner arrives at a complex but cohesive portrait of the century-long Sherpa association with the mountaineers, an elegant wedding of two distinct cultural strands - with all the inherent harmonies and tensions - a moving picture that shifts focus and emphasis as new elements, from identity politics to the counterculture, come into play. (Kirkus Reviews)

[Ortner's book] written so clearly and with such evident fascination with the subject that it's more than just accessible to lay readers: it's captivating. I've had anthropology texts put me to sleep right after morning coffee, but this one kept me awake at night. -- Michael Parfit, New York Times Book Review Having lived and worked with the Sherpas for more than thirty years as a serious anthropologist, Ortner is in an ideal position to introduce the other, unknown culture involved with Himalayan climbing... Fascinating. -- Pico Iyer, New York Review of Books The book brings us a much richer understanding of the cultural partnership underpinning Himalayan mountaineering... Life and Death on Mt. Everest is a swift and canny guide to this uncharted territory. -- Alison Demos, Lingua Franca Sherry Ortner reveals the details of Sherpa life on and off the mountain and sweeps away a century of misguided characterizations... [This] book is one of those rare crossover works, a scholarly exploration of Sherpa culture that the lay reader (climber or not) will find utterly fascinating. -- Newsday [A] first-rate study... [Ortner] is an intelligent and fair-minded scholar who has combed the mountain literature and fused it with what she observed in the field. -- David Craig, Los Angeles Times A remarkable display of agile fieldwork, sensitive to all the distinctive shadings that compose [the] subject... Ortner arrives at a complex but cohesive portrait of the century-long Sherpa association with the mountaineers... -- Kirkus Reviews This is not another nail-biting saga of alpine disaster, but rather--finally--an authoritative study of the group that has made summiting 8,000-meter Himalayan peaks possible for Westerners... Ortner retells the Everest story from the Sherpa point of view... -- Outside A fascinating examination of the world of the Sherpas... [Ortner's] book is an eye-opening, behind-the-scenes look at mountaineering. -- Library Journal A well-written and thorough account...and the only book on this topic. -- Choice A fascinating new study of the interaction between Western climbers and Sherpas... -- Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times

Author Information

Sherry B. Ortner is Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University. She is the author of two previous books on the Sherpas of Nepal, Sherpas through Their Rituals and High Religion: A Cultural and Political History of Sherpa Buddhism (Princeton), and has also written books on social, cultural, and feminist theory. She has received numerous prestigious awards, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.

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