By Peter L. Bayers
The thrills and chills of mountain climbing literature have lengthy attracted a faithful viewers of significant climbers, adventure-seekers, and armchair fans. In contemporary a long time, students have come to view those stories of prowess and fortitude as texts weighted down with ideological that means. In "Imperial Ascent" a comparative examine of 7 such twentieth-century hiking narratives, Peter L. Bayers articulates the a number of and sundry methods hiking and its literature have performed within the formation and upkeep of nationwide identification. by way of reading such works as Belmore BrowneÂ’s "The Conquest of Mount McKinley" and Sir John HuntÂ’s "The Ascent of Everest," Bayers contends that for American and British climbers, hiking is tied to imperial ideology and dominant notions of masculinity.
At a similar time, he demonstrates how "Tiger of the Snows," Sherpa Tenzing Norgay's account of mountain climbing Mount Everest, undermines Western conceptions of climbing and imperialism. all through this theoretically educated critique, Bayers manages to keep the experience of awe and event inherent within the unique works, making "Imperial Ascent" a hugely enticing learn.
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Extra info for Imperial Ascent: Mountaineering, Masculinity and Empire
Sample text
They favour the Indian and the prospector but permit the wholesale extermination of the big game. The only result of this law is to keep big game hunters out of that territory and to make a closed field for the Indian and the prospector to slaughter at will. (44) The Regeneration of Progressive-Era Masculinity 27 Although “the spirit of the law and the generally accepted theory is to curb the outside hunter and allow the native a free hand with minor restrictions” (44), Cook argues that “this theory in Alaska is a misfit” (44).
S. preeminence in the world. S. S. worldwide expansionist ambitions. The fact that the event was attended by the chargé d’affaires of Spain and the Japanese ambassador underscores the symbolic import of Bell’s imperial gesture—considering that the United States had recently acquired Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines from Spain in the Spanish-American War and was now a competitive imperial neighbor with Japan. And Theodore Roosevelt—one of the driving forces behind the belief that the United States must continue its imperial expansion for the health of the nation—followed Cook’s speech with encomiums to Peary.
Cook considers the validity of the Russian name “Bolshoy” and points out that “the Susitna Indians gave the name To-lah-gah to the same group. Therefore the new name Mt. McKinley finds a proper setting to a fitting monument as a token of appreciation to the memory of one of our greatest statesmen” (xix). Granted, Cook acknowledges that the indigenous peoples such as the Susitna Indians had a name for the mountain chain, but for Cook these names are easily displaced because “up to the present” there is no known “specific” name for the peak.