Himalaya
Autor John Keayen Limba Engleză Hardback – 8 noi 2022
Putem afirma că Himalaya nu este doar o cronică a înălțimilor, ci o analiză critică a unui sistem vital pentru supraviețuirea a peste o treime din populația globului. Aplicabilitatea practică a acestui volum rezidă în modul în care John Keay conectează datele geofizice — cele 50.000 de ghețari și cel mai extins permafrost din afara zonelor polare — cu realitățile geopolitice și sociale ale unei regiuni fragmentate între multiple națiuni. Găsim în această carte o perspectivă integrată: muntele nu este doar un decor pentru exploratori, ci un motor economic și ecologic aflat într-un echilibru precar din cauza schimbărilor climatice.
Din punct de vedere stilistic, John Keay abandonează structura clasică a jurnalelor de expediție în favoarea unei abordări structurale, tratând masivul ca pe un organism viu, seismic instabil. Cititorii familiarizați cu The Himalayas de Andrew J. Hund vor aprecia modul în care Keay transformă rigoarea enciclopedică într-o narațiune fluidă, aducând în plus o dimensiune umanistă și istorică profundă. Dacă lucrarea lui Hund servește ca referință tehnică, volumul de față oferă argumentul moral pentru protejarea acestui „centru sacru” al Asiei.
Această lucrare reprezintă punctul culminant al operei autorului, poziționându-se ca o sinteză necesară după volumele sale de referință India și China. Dacă în The Great Arc Keay se concentra pe efortul cartografic al secolului al XIX-lea, în Himalaya el extinde cadrul, oferind o viziune panoramică asupra viitorului regiunii. Este, în esență, un testament al unui istoric care a urmărit transformarea Asiei timp de peste jumătate de secol, de la primele sale reportaje din Kashmir până la dezbaterile climatice contemporane.
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Specificații
ISBN-10: 1632869438
Pagini: 432
Dimensiuni: 158 x 241 x 39 mm
Greutate: 0.76 kg
Editura: Bloomsbury USA
De ce să citești această carte
Recomandăm această carte oricui dorește să înțeleagă mizele ecologice și politice ale Asiei moderne. Cititorul câștigă o perspectivă clară asupra modului în care topirea ghețarilor himalayeni influențează securitatea alimentară și energetică globală. Este o lectură esențială pentru cei interesați de istorie regională și ecologie, oferind argumente solide despre motivul pentru care această regiune, de mărimea Europei, rămâne coloana vertebrală a stabilității climatice mondiale.
Despre autor
John Keay este un reputat istoric și jurnalist britanic, specializat în istoria Asiei și explorări geografice. Cariera sa a fost marcată de o legătură profundă cu subcontinentul indian, începută în anii '60 ca corespondent străin. Este autorul unor lucrări monumentale, printre care India: A History și China: A History, fiind recunoscut pentru capacitatea de a sintetiza milenii de civilizație în narațiuni accesibile. Stabilit în Scoția, Keay a fost distins pentru contribuțiile sale la literatura istorică, Himalaya fiind considerată lucrarea sa de maturitate, care reunește expertiza sa în geopolitică, explorare și științe umaniste.
Descriere scurtă
More rugged and elevated than any other zone on earth, Himalaya embraces all of Tibet, plus six of the world's eight major mountain ranges and nearly all its highest peaks. It contains around 50,000 glaciers and the most extensive permafrost outside the polar region. 35% of the global population depends on Himalaya's freshwater for crop-irrigation, protein, and, increasingly, hydro-power. Over an area nearly as big as Europe, the population is scattered, often nomadic and always sparse. Many languages are spoken, some are written, and few are related. Religious allegiances are equally diverse. The region is also politically fragmented, its borders belonging to multiple nations with no unity in how to address the risks posed by Himalaya's environment, including a volatile, near-tropical latitude in which temperatures climb from sub-zero at night to 80°F by day.
Himalaya has drawn an illustrious succession of admirers, from explorers, surveyors, and sportsmen, to botanists and zoologists, ethnologists and geologists, missionaries and mountaineers. It now sits seismically unstable, as tectonic plates continue to shift and the region remains gridlocked in a global debate surrounding climate change. Himalaya is historian John Keay's striking case for this spectacular but endangered corner of the planet as one if its most essential wonders. Without an other-worldly ethos and respect for its confounding, utterly fascinating features, John argues, Himalaya will soon cease to exist.
Descriere
'John Keay is the master storyteller and historian. This grand narrative of Himalaya is as epic as the mountains and peoples he describes' Dan Snow
'Adds the human element to the hard rock. And what a rich vein it is' Michael Palin
History has not been kind to Himalaya. Empires have collided here, cultures have clashed. Buddhist India claimed it from the south, Islam put down roots in its western approaches, Mongols and Manchus rode in from the north, and, from the east, China continues to absorb what it prefers not to call Tibet. Hunters have decimated its wildlife and mountaineers have bagged its peaks. Today, machinery gouges minerals out of its rock.
Roughly the size of Europe, the region is one of the most seismically active on the planet. Summers bring avalanches, rainfall triggers landslides and winters obliterate trails. Glaciers retreat, rivers change course and whole lakes quietly evaporate.
To some, Himalaya is an otherworldly realm, profoundly life-changing, yet forbidding and forbidden. It has mesmerised scholars and mystics, sportsmen and spies, pilgrims and mapmakers who have mingled with the farmers and traders on the 'Roof of the World'.
Himalaya is the story of one of the last great wildernesses and, in particular, of the bizarre discoveries and improbable achievements of its pioneers. Ranging from botany to trade, from the Great Game to today's geopolitics, John Keay draws on a lifetime of exploration and study to enlighten and delight with this lively biography of a region in crisis.
Recenzii
There cannot be any current anglophone writer more knowledgeable about the region.
Adds the human element to the hard rock. And what a rich vein it is
Excellent
John Keay is the master storyteller and historian. This grand narrative of Himalaya is as epic as the mountains and peoples he describes
From palaeontology to mysticism, from the East India Company to mountaineers, this is dazzlingly wide-ranging, brilliantly researched and elegantly told
The guru of modern writers on Himalaya. Here, after a lifetime's travel and reflection, is the story of the most important region on earth
A dazzling collision of storytelling and scholarship, and the culmination of a lifetime's research and experience, this is surely John Keay's masterwork. He tackles the epic subject of the entire Himalayan region, through human history, and brings to it his own distinctive style - at once authoritative and colourful, stirring and droll, ambitious yet humble. A compelling portrait of a uniquely vulnerable region
Let John Keay be your guide: he has decades of first-hand experience in the region, he wears his extensive learning lightly and he is a magnificent storyteller
John Keay's stunning book is meticulously researched and a gripping read. It lays out the long-standing allure of Himalaya, from the geographical and environmental to the archaeological and cultural.
A compendium of centuries of outsiders' quests for scientific understanding of every aspect of the Himalayas - from its geology, topography and natural history to questions of anthropology and social history. No potential angle is left unexplored
The term 'tour de force' doesn't do Keay's Himalaya justice. A beautiful work by one of the world's foremost historians, the book is meticulously researched and written with Keay's particular flair. Comparable in its page-turning addiction to a fictional thriller, this will go down as a seminal work on the Himalaya.
Poetically written ... A wonderfully digressive read, with rich portraits and stories of those who made their careers and fame from Himalaya
A wonderful book about an extraordinary place ... Keay's undertaking in print is as vast in its scope as the area it seeks to enclose between the covers of this single, handsomely illustrated volume ... Truly a place of wonder, wonderfully caught
A book that is meant to be savoured, not to be conquered. Enjoy the ride
The appropriate crown for John Keay's writing on Asia. His study of the Himalaya marks the grand finale to his prodigious twin histories of India and China. Roll over Edward Gibbon. The powerful reimagining of the Himalaya from the structural perspective adds to the mountaineering and mythological lore, while the magisterial style is lightened by marvellous one liners. One of the best and easily the most informed books on the Himalaya