With new access to letters and diaries, Davis recounts the heroic attempts of George Mallory and his fellow climbers to conquer the mountain in the face of treacherous terrain and furious weather. Davis shows how the exploration originated in nineteenth-century imperial ambitions, and he takes us far beyond the Himalayas to the trenches of World War I, where Mallory and his generation found themselves and their world utterly shattered. In the wake of a war that cost millions of lives, the Everest expeditions, led by these scions of Britain’s elite, became a symbol of national redemption.

Beautifully written and rich with detail, Into the Silence is a classic account of exploration and mountaineering, and a timeless portrait of a few iconic men.