John Keay’s latest book, Himālaya, focuses on the most important mountain range in the world and its heart, Tibet
Review by David Eimer
John Keay has been writing synoptic histories of India, its environs and the golden age of exploration in Asia for almost 50 years. His latest book brings together themes and people covered in some of his previous outings, as he focuses on the mountain range that’s home to the world’s highest peaks, separates the two Asian superpowers – China and India – and straddles five countries.
Inevitably, it’s Tibet – the heart of the Himalaya – that’s Keay’s focus as he delves into the geology and geography, and the flora and fauna of the mountains, highlights their fragile status as the only high-altitude eco-zone on the planet and recounts the adventures of the eccentrics and empire builders who started to explore them in earnest during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Many of their names will be familiar to any reader interested in the history of the region: Francis Younghusband, Frederick Marshman Bailey, Sven Hedin and George Mallory all feature. Keay also details the pre-Second World War rush to ‘conquer’ the major peaks of the Himalaya, as well as the Nazi expedition to Tibet in search of the supposed roots of the Aryan race, both of which have been written about extensively elsewhere.
More intriguing are the accounts of a number of lesser-known Himalayan wanderers, such as the French opera singer and Buddhist scholar Alexandra David-Neel, who, in 1924, became the first European woman to reach Lhasa, doing so without any imperial bluster. The Indian swami Pranavananda Maharaj, who spent decades exploring western Tibet, also deservedly receives some belated recognition.
Keay deploys his elegant prose and extensive research, but there are some curious omissions: there’s nothing on the Tea Horse Road, the network of caravan trails that linked southwest China with Tibet. And while Keay stresses the environmental challenges the Himalaya face, he has little to say on how China’s rule over Tibet is accelerating the decline of ecosystems there or on the uncertain political future of the region. Ultimately, this is a book that’s more comfortable focusing on the past than the present.
