Books: Man's Measure

THE CONQUEST OF EVEREST (300 pp.)—Sir John Hunt—Dutton ($6).

Mountains, when high enough and tough enough, measure men. In three decades, at least 16 men died trying to scale Everest, and eleven expeditions failed to reach its 29,002-foot virgin summit, although at least six men got within the last, breathless 1,000 feet. What was needed to conquer it? That was the question facing Colonel John Hunt in the autumn of 1952, when he took the leadership of a British climbing expedition. In The Conquest of Everest, Mountaineer Hunt gives a cleanly written, technician's answer,...