Max Leonard
autor
Mountain Style
The first book to celebrate the history, vintage style and visual heritage of the UK's outdoor clothing brands. When a British expedition reached the summit of Everest in 1953, it put British mountaineering at the top of the world. In the decades that followed, there was an explosion in the popular love of the outdoors, and outdoor clothing boomed. What hikers and mountaineers wore evolved from woolly jumpers, army surplus and cotton or tweed into highly technical specialist gear. Mostly responsible for this was a small group of climbers, who couldn't buy the products they needed and so decided to make them, sowing the seeds for the global brands - Berghaus, Craghoppers, Karrimor, Mountain Equipment, Rab, Sprayway and others - we know today. Still worn in the toughest environments imaginable, British outdoor clothing is also now ubiquitous - equally seen on hikers, everyday dog-walkers and vintage gear lovers in east London, Manchester's Northern Quarter or Tokyo. Mountain Style: British Outdoor Clothing 1953-2000 is the first illustrated book to tell this story, from the days of postwar austerity, through the colour explosion of the 1980s, to the 1990s, when outdoor clothing became embedded in football and rave subcultures and crossed into the mainstream. It celebrates the outsiders, the problem solvers and the mavericks: the manufacturing pioneers and the mountaineers who from humble beginnings went further, faster and higher - setting the template for what we all wear in the outdoors, and inadvertently creating style classics along the way. Alongside interviews with those at the birth of the brands, Mountain Style features vintage brochures, adverts and photos, plus new studio photography. From down jackets that summited Everest in 1953 to the first Gore-Tex and multicoloured fleeces, via logos, materials and more, it is an indispensable companion for outdoor and style lovers in the UK and beyond.
Higher Calling
Why do road cyclists go to the mountains?
After all, cycling up a mountain is hard - so hard that, to many non-cyclists, it can seem absurd. But, for some, climbing a mountain gracefully (and beating your competitors up the slope) represents the pinnacle of cycling achievement. The mountains are where legends are forged and cycling's greats make their names.
Many books tell you where the mountains are, or how long and how high. None of them ask `Why?'
Why are Europe's mountain ranges professional cycling's Wembley Stadium or its Colosseum? Why do amateurs also make a pilgrimage to these high, remote roads and what do we see and feel when we do?
Why are the roads there in the first place?
Higher Calling explores the central place of mountains in the folklore of road cycling. Blending adventure and travel writing with the rich narrative of pro racing, Max Leonard takes the reader from the battles that created the Alpine roads to the shepherds tending their flocks on the peaks, and to a Grand Tour climax on the `highest road in Europe'. And he tells stories of courage and sacrifice, war and love, obsession and elephants along the way.
A Cold Spell
Taking us from the beginning of our story to the present day, A Cold Spell examines how ice has shaped our thoughts, actions and societies – and what it means for us that it is rapidly disappearing from our planet
Ice has confounded, delighted and fascinated us since the first sparks of art and culture in Europe and it now underpins the modern world. Without ice, we would not feed ourselves or heal our sick as we do, and our towns and cities, countryside and oceans would look very different. Science would not have progressed along the avenues it did and our galleries and libraries would be missing many masterpieces.
A Cold Spell uses this vital link to understanding our past to tell a surprising story of obsession, invention and adventure – how we have lived and dreamed, celebrated and traded, innovated, loved and fought over thousands of years. It brings together a sacrificial Incan mummy, Winston Churchill's secret plans for unusual aircraft carriers, strange bones that shook Victorian beliefs about the world and a macabre journey into the depths of the human body. It is an original and unique way of looking at something that is literally all around us, whose loss confronts us daily in the news, but whose impact on our lives has never been fully explored.
Vypredané
19,95 €
