The history of mountaineering has long served as a metaphor for civilization triumphant. Once upon a time, the Alps were an inaccessible habitat of specters and dragons, until heroic men pioneers of enlightenment scaled their summits, classified their strata and flora, and banished the phantoms forever. A fascinating interdisciplinary study of the first ascents of the major Alpine peaks and Mount Everest, "The Summits of Modern Man" surveys the far-ranging significance of our encounters with the world s most alluring and forbidding heights.

Our obsession with who got to the top first...