The mountaineer and award-winning author of Alone on the Ice and The Lost World of the Old Ones recounts his search for meaning in the quests of history's famed explorers, drawing partially on his own relationship with extreme-risk adventure and serious illness to share insights into what may have motivated landmark expeditions and ascents.
Record details
ISBN:9780393609868
ISBN:0393609863
Physical Description:306 pages ; 25 cm print
Edition:First edition.
Publisher:New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.
Content descriptions
Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references.
Formatted Contents Note:
Farthest north -- Blank on the map -- Prehistoric 5.10 -- The quest for the other -- First descent -- First contact -- The undiscovered Earth -- The future of adventure.
David Roberts, "veteran mountain climber and chronicler of adventures" (Washington Post), has spent his career documenting voyages to the most extreme landscapes on earth. In Limits of the Known, he reflects on humanity's--and his own--relationship to extreme risk. Part memoir and part history, this book tries to make sense of why so many have committed their lives to the desperate pursuit of adventure. In the wake of his diagnosis with throat cancer, Roberts seeks answers with sharp new urgency. He explores his own lifelong commitment to adventuring, as well as the cultural contributions of explorers throughout history: What specific forms of courage and commitment did it take for Fridtjof Nansen to survive an eighteen-month journey from a record "farthest north" with no supplies and a single rifle during his polar expedition of 1893-96? What compelled Eric Shipton to return, five times, to the ridges of Mt. Everest, plotting the mountain's most treacherous territory years before Hillary and Tenzing's famous ascent? What drove Bill Stone to dive 3,000 feet underground into North America's deepest cave? What motivates the explorers we most admire, who are willing to embark on perilous journeys and push the limits of the human body? And what is the future of adventure in a world we have mapped and trodden from end to end?