Rating: 
Summary: Long-overdue tribute to three legendary Chamonix guides
Review: This book is a must read for anyone who wants to know the truth about Annapurna 1950--and for anyone who wants to understand the history of mountaineering in this century.Above all, the book sheds light on the lives of Lionel Terray, Gaston Rebuffat and Louis Lachenal, three men whose names are linked to some of the greatest climbs and some of the greatest climbing literature of all time (... Terray's "Conquerors of the Useless" and Lachenal's "Vertigo Notebooks" are my two personal picks for the best climbing books ever ....) Terray, Rebuffat and Lachenal were the core of the French national expedition to Annapurna in 1950. And yet .... when the expedition returned home, leader Maurice Herzog (an excellent but relatively undistinguished amateur climber) became a national hero, while the three guides who led him up the mountain went back to Chamonix and sank into relative obscurity outside of the climbing world. This changed in 1996, at least for the French public, with the publication of Rebuffat's biography and Lachenal's *uncensored* memoirs. These books showed the less pleasant side of Herzog's leadership of the expedition--and the outrageous lengths to which Herzog was willing to go to make sure his ex-comrades never got to tell their side of the story. True Summit provides a great service to the English-speaking public by recapping the revelations of Lachenal's and Rebuffat's memoirs, and it also adds a wealth of new information uncovered by Roberts in three years of research, including some amazing revelations that have tongues wagging all over the Alps. More than anything else, however, True Summit is a moving tribute to the three guides who, at least according to Roberts, really led the 1950 expedition. Anyone who has thrilled to the poetry of Rebuffat's Starlight and Storm or has relived the climbs of the legendary Terray-Lachenal partnership through their memoirs has to read True Summit ....
Rating: 
Summary: A good book, but not one of Roberts' best
Review: This was a fascinating book to read, particularly after having just reread Herzog's original Annapurna. However I didn't find the book to be as well written as some of David Roberts' other works which I have enjoyed a great deal (The Lost Explorer, The Mountain of My Fear, Deborah, Escape Routes). The author does a great job of pulling together information from a variety of sources and debunking much of Herzog's orginal and revised takes on what happened on Annapurna in 1950. Much of this information had already been revealed a few years back when controversy arose in France about the veracity of Herzog's accounts but Roberts manages to put all of that information in one place and makes it clear that Herzog was tooting his horn a bit too much at the expense of accurate information and fairness to his teammates. What bothered me a bit about the book, however, was that, at times, the author seemed to be all over the place. One minute he's telling you about the expedition, then he's telling you about each of the climber's early upbringing, then he's debunking more of Herzog's story, then he's telling you about what the team members did after the expedition was over, then he's debunking more and then, and perhaps most frustrating, he's throwing in references to his own climbing experiences which I didn't think bore much relevance to the story he was trying to tell. This jumping around made it hard to follow what he was trying to do at different points in the book. It simply was not as cleanly written as many of his past works. Nevertheless, the book is a great read and definitely worth adding to one's collection of works on the history of moutaineering. Finally, I agree with an earlier reviewer in that one should go back and read or reread Annapurna before tackling Roberts' book so you understand the story Roberts' is trying to debunk.
Rating:
Summary: A good book, but not one of Roberts' best
Review: This was a fascinating book to read, particularly after having just reread Herzog's original Annapurna. However I didn't find the book to be as well written as some of David Roberts' other works which I have enjoyed a great deal (The Lost Explorer, The Mountain of My Fear, Deborah, Escape Routes). The author does a great job of pulling together information from a variety of sources and debunking much of Herzog's orginal and revised takes on what happened on Annapurna in 1950. Much of this information had already been revealed a few years back when controversy arose in France about the veracity of Herzog's accounts but Roberts manages to put all of that information in one place and makes it clear that Herzog was tooting his horn a bit too much at the expense of accurate information and fairness to his teammates. What bothered me a bit about the book, however, was that, at times, the author seemed to be all over the place. One minute he's telling you about the expedition, then he's telling you about each of the climber's early upbringing, then he's debunking more of Herzog's story, then he's telling you about what the team members did after the expedition was over, then he's debunking more and then, and perhaps most frustrating, he's throwing in references to his own climbing experiences which I didn't think bore much relevance to the story he was trying to tell. This jumping around made it hard to follow what he was trying to do at different points in the book. It simply was not as cleanly written as many of his past works. Nevertheless, the book is a great read and definitely worth adding to one's collection of works on the history of moutaineering. Finally, I agree with an earlier reviewer in that one should go back and read or reread Annapurna before tackling Roberts' book so you understand the story Roberts' is trying to debunk.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing book
Review: True Summit is an amazing book, both as a climbing book and as a work of historical scholarship. It exposes a web of dishonesty surrounding the classic account of the first ascent of Annapurna. Some scenes are provocative of outrage, as when Roberts describes the editorial notes -- "Wrong", "This must be changed" -- made by Herzog and Devies on Lachenal's diary. Throughout, Roberts intersperses scenes from his own mountaineering career, which add immediacy and human interest. One nitpick I had was that, as a writer of history, Roberts should really have given a definitive list of sources and referenced his quotes. More importantly, I felt that he never really sums up his arguments. Why was Herzog's Annapurna the whitewashed version that it apparently was? Were the reasons nationalistic, class (amateur versus guide), personal? What can these events tell us about mountaineering as a whole? These are questions which Roberts does not really address. Still, this is a fascinating book and I certainly recommend it.
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