Killing Dragons: The Conquest of the Alps

The soaring mountains of the Alps have inspired and challenged some of the greatest explorers in history. For centuries, however, Europeans shunned the peaks, fearing them to be realms of icy terror, inhospitable regions that harbored dragons, demons, witches, and all sorts of alien beings. Yet their fear eventually turned to curiosity, and in Killing Dragons Fergus Fleming recounts the incredible exploits of the men who explored Europe's frozen wilderness.

The adventures began in the late eighteenth century, when French and Swiss scientists tackled the peaks, seeking knowledge of the atmosphere, the earth's origins, and glaciers. In the 1850s, this scientific pursuit became an obsessive competition as British climbers vied with one another to conquer ever higher and more impossible mountains. They fought each other on the peaks and in the press, entertaining a vast public smitten with their bravery, delighted by their personal animosities, and horrified by the disasters that befell them.

The great mountains fell one by one to these climbers, while the glaciers accumulated a store of mangled bodies. The conquest of the Alps, a central chapter in the history of mountaineering, is a hair-raising and thrillingly eccentric tale, captured here by a remarkable storyteller.