Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest

In this magisterial work of history and adventure, based on more than a decade of prodigious research in British, Canadian, and European archives, and months in the field in Nepal and Tibet, Davis vividly re-creates British climbers’ epic attempts to scale Everest in the early 1920s. With new access to unpublished letters, diaries, regimental records, and Tibetan monastery accounts, Davis recounts the heroic efforts of George Mallory and his fellow climbers to conquer the mountain in the face of treacherous terrain and furious weather. Into the Silence sets their remarkable achievements in sweeping historical context: Davis shows how the exploration originated in nineteenth-century imperial ambitions, and he takes us far beyond the Himalayas to the trenches of World War I, where Mallory and his generation found themselves and their world utterly shattered. In the wake of the war that destroyed all notions of honor and decency, the Everest expeditions, led by these scions of Britain’s elite, emerged as a symbol of national redemption and hope. This is a massive and meticulously researched work.

Finalist 2012 Banff Mountain Book Festival Mountain & Wilderness Literature, Shortlisted for 2012 Boardman-Tasker Award for Mountaineering Literature, Winner 2012 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Shortlisted for 2023 Baillie Gifford Winner of Winners Award.