Himalayas

by Yoshikazu Shirakawa (Author, Photographer), Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Deva (Testimonial), Arnold Joseph Toynbee (Foreword)

THE HIMALAYAS! The world’s highest mountains, they evoke stories of legendary perils and heroic adventures. Now for the first time the awesome grandeur of their peaks, valleys, glaciers, and snowfields is presented in large-scale, brilliant reproductions that literally thrust the reader into the magnificence of the Roof of the World.

Exquisite and dramatic full-page and double-page photographs, as well as a number of breathtaking foldout plates, show us the extraordinarily diverse effects of light at different times of day and the highly varied terrain. We see the subtle colors of dawn, sunset and twilight; the brilliance of noon; the clouds, mists, blizzards, and thunderstorms swirling around the peaks; mountain lakes set like jewels in rocky valleys; snow and ice glittering like crystals; unusually green and fertile valleys. We meet the fascinating people of the region in rare and memorable photographs.

The pictures and commentaries are the work of Yoshikazu Shirakawa, Japan’s leading photographer, who spent four hazardous and adventure-packed years photographing the Himalayas. He traveled the length and breadth of the range – from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan – enduring the tremendous hardships that only a small group of courageous hardships that only a small group of courageous men, committed to the conquest of the world’s greatest mountain peaks, have been willing to undertake.

The book is divided into four parts, each devoted to a major sector of the mountains: the Nepal, Punjab, and Sikkim Himalayas, and the Hindu Kush range. Prefaces have b ee4n contributed by three distinguished men: the King of Nepal the historian Arnold Toynbee; and the conqueror of Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary. Finally, there is an essay by Kyuya Fukada which provides an expert and absorbing discussion of the geological evolution, history, and people of the Himalayas. These texts, together with the stunning photographs, make this handsome volume a major publishing achievement.

Genres: Reference

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Praneesh K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once sea, now mountains

[Brian Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning and am proud to own.