Publisher's Weekly Review
In this book "about American history, as seen through the prism of mountaineering," Isserman starts with the Pilgrims in 1642; he then climbs his way through the years to 1963, which he calls "perhaps, the greatest year in the history of American climbing," because of the groundbreaking routes being ascended in Yosemite and James Whittaker becoming the first American to summit Everest. There are tales of explorers such as Lewis and Clark; mountain men such as John Colter and Jedediah Smith; renowned nature-lovers Emerson, Thoreau, and Muir; and climbers Yvon Chouinard and Royal Robbins. Isserman brings these diverse stories together in a cohesive narrative with a strong combination of in-depth research and welcoming prose that even a climbing novice can understand. Though Isserman glosses over issues of the last 50 years (competitive climbing, sponsorships, ethics, the sport's fragmentation), his passionate scholarship turns this specialized sporting history into an easily accessible account of the exploration, subjugation, conservation, and appreciation of the great peaks of the U.S. and the world. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
This doesn't pretend to be a comprehensive history of American mountaineering. Although it starts in 1642, when Darby Field made the first recorded ascent of an American mountain, it ends in the mid-1960s, when climbing became, in the author's words, a mass participation sport in the U.S. In fact, the book is really about American history, as seen through the prism of mountaineering. Hence the title: not just a phrase used to denote the series of mountain ranges that break the North American continent into two sections (one where the rivers drain into the Pacific Ocean, the other where the water leads to the Atlantic), but also a phrase that calls up memories of Lewis and Clark, of American exploration, of conquering seemingly insurmountable odds in the creation of a nation. Isserman, the author of Fallen Giants (2008), about the history of mountaineering in the Himalayas, brings the same wide-ranging insight and engaging prose style to this follow-up. The result is an account both educational and, perhaps surprisingly, thrilling.--Pitt, David Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERING HISTORY may seem inconsequential to mainstream audiences. It's not. From within America's mountaineering circles sprang two of the country's greatest contributions to world culture - national parks, which Wallace Stegner called "the best idea we ever had," and the modern environmental movement. Maurice Isserman, a history professor at Hamilton College, conceives "Continental Divide: A History of American Mountaineering" as "a book about American history, as seen through the prism of mountaineering." He starts deep, in the spring of 1642, when "the population of the British colonies in North America included exactly one mountaineer" - Darby Field, "a 32-year-old Englishman of Irish descent" who was "doing something unprecedented ... climbing a mountain." Field reached a 6,288-foot summit that the local Pigwacket Indians called "Agiocochook." Today, it's Mount Washington in New Hampshire. Field left no record of his climb nor any statement of purpose. Most colonists thought he was insane, a prejudice toward mountain climbing many Americans have yet to overcome. Moving forward from Darby Field through more than three centuries, "Continental Divide" is in part a philosophical examination of attitudes toward mountains and wilderness, in part a blow-by-blow account of American climbing accomplishments. For aficionados, it covers mostly familiar terrain. But to the uninitiated, it can serve as an informative, dutiful omnium-gatherum. Among its highlights is the story of an 1842 ascent of a 13,745-foot mountain by the explorer and future Republican presidential candidate John C. Frémont, who led a crew including the mountain man Kit Carson and the noted surveyor Charles Preuss. They called their mountain Snow Peak, claiming it was the highest in the Rockies. (It wasn't even the highest in Wyoming's Wind River Range.) Frémont reported that a "solitary bee" buzzed their ascent. The icy rock was an odd spot, he noted, "for a lover of warm sunshine and flowers," and he wrote that "we pleased ourselves with the idea that he was the first of his species to cross the mountain barrier." In a gesture emblematic of the 19th-century link between "mountain exploration and American expansionist dreams," Frémont unfurled the Stars and Stripes on the summit. ISSERMAN RIGHTLY CONSIDERS the climber, writer, conservationist and founder of the Sierra Club John Muir (1838-1914) "the greatest figure in American mountaineering." Still, he exposes his unfamiliarity with the modern state of the art when he describes the most difficult section of John Muir's solo ascent of 10,916-foot Cathedral Peak near Yosemite Valley as "a pitch that in years since has rarely been climbed unroped or solo." That isn't true. In summer, Cathedral Peak's summit block gets soloed every fair weather day. Nor is Isserman particularly kind to the Yosemite generation that surged to the vanguard after World War II, denigrating them for, among other things, a "competitive individualism" supposedly absent from the previous climbing generations. But as Isserman's own stories about the American K2 expeditions in 1938 and 1939 and the ferocious turn-of-the-20th-century rivalry between Annie Peck and Fanny Bullock Workman make clear, competition has long been a feature of mountain climbing. Then, abruptly, with the first American summits of Mount Everest in 1963 and the 1964 first ascent of the North America Wall on the overhanging southeast face of Yosemite's El Capitan, Isserman declares an end to American climbing history and quits, justifying his exit with the claim that with the so-called rucksack revolution of the middle 1960s, "climbing had finally become a mass participation activity." With all due respect, in 1964 American mountaineering was just getting started.
Library Journal Review
Isserman (history, Hamilton Coll.; -coauthor, Fallen Giants) brings masterly storytelling and an eye for detail to the history of American mountaineering, beginning with the colonialists' first encounters with mountains in the 17th century and ending with the golden age of climbing in the mid-1960s. Chapters are all-encompassing narratives of prominent climbers and first ascents, allowing Isserman to pinpoint the emergence of modern mountain climbing, notably the Belknap-Cutler expedition in July 1784 on New Hampshire's Mount Washington. Additionally, the author traces the geologic history of America's mountain ranges and considers the changing nature of climbing, including the construction of hiking trails, the introduction of the sport's gear, and the expansion of adventuring beyond East Coast enclaves. Isserman's deft use of resources, archives, and firsthand accounts make this a wonderful gem of a work that readers can mine for inspiration. VERDICT This broad sweep of American mountaineering history will satisfy general history readers and outdoor adventurers alike.-Margaret Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Lib., IN © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
