Helvetic Heights: A Human History of the Swiss Alps

"The human mind today grasps the splendor of the Swiss Alps. For millennia, though, the Alps seemed a burden and not a blessing, more a deathtrap than a tourist destination. Mankind has met those mountains... and adapted, avoided, hiked, climbed, worshipped, and cursed them. We have used them as a winter sports playground; fictionalized, sketched, photographed, and painted them. We have studied them, sung about, saved, paved, and politicized them. This is the story of that compelling relationship."