Himalaya: A Human History

Written by Ed Douglas

Narrated by James Cameron Stewart

For centuries, the unique and astonishing geography of the Himalaya has attracted those in search of spiritual and literal elevation: pilgrims, adventurers, and mountaineers seeking to test themselves among the world's most challenging peaks. But far from being wild and barren, the Himalaya has been home to a diversity of indigenous and local cultures, a crucible of world religions, a crossroads for trade, and a meeting point and conflict zone for empires past and present. In this landmark work, Ed Douglas makes a thrilling case for the Himalaya's importance in global history and offers a soaring account of life at the "roof of the world."



Spanning millennia, from the earliest inhabitants to the present conflicts over Tibet and Everest, Himalaya explores history, culture, climate, geography, and politics. Douglas profiles the great kings of Kathmandu and Nepal; he describes the architects who built the towering white Stupas that distinguish Himalayan architecture; and he traces the flourishing evolution of Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism that brought Himalayan spirituality to the world. He also depicts the story of how the East India Company grappled for dominance with China's emperors, how India fought Mao's Communists, and how mass tourism and ecological transformation are obscuring the bloody legacy of the Cold War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Jul 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781696604734

Ed Douglas

Ed Douglas has been climbing for over thirty-five years and has been a writer and editor for the last thirty. He launched the magazine On The Edge while at university in Manchester, and has published eight books about mountains and their people. His books include biographies of Tenzing Norgay, rock-climbing visionary Ben Moon and the late British mountaineer Alison Hargreaves. His ghostwritten autobiography of Ron Fawcett, Rock Athlete, won the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature in 2010. Three of the essays in The Magician’s Glass were either shortlisted for or won at the Banff Mountain Book Festival in Canada. Douglas’s journalistic work most often appears in The Observer and The Guardian. He is the current editor of the Alpine Journal and lives in Sheffield with his wife Kate. They have two grown-up children.

Reviews for Himalaya

[currerbell-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Himalaya: A Human History runs from early history through the 21st century, but much of it is centered on the eras of the British East India Company and the subsequent Imperial Raj. While Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan were never a formal part of the Raj (nor was Sikkim, though Sikkim has since been absorbed into post-colonial India), there were major interactions between these mountain kingdoms and India, both pre-British and during the British era; and some lowland border areas such as Darjeeling (as its name indicates, a major center of tea production) were actually a part of the Raj.

There's also substantial discussion of the relations between the Himalayan regions and China, including some discussion of colonial/imperialist Britain's opium wars as well as present-day Sino-Tibetan relations and the effects on both Nepal and India.

An excellent book, and one that's so rich and complex as to require a reread. The reason I've given it four rather than five stars is because of the absence of any footnotes or endnotes. There's an extensive bibliography, but it's unannotated and thus of minimal value. There are many issues where annotated authorities would be helpful, because you won't get such support from the laundry-list bibliography. I'd especially like to have had supporting references to the CIA's activities in Tibet.