Author Description

"In The White Death, McKay Jenkins unfolds a gripping natural history of avalanches, framed by the story of one of the worst avalanche disasters in mountaineering history. In 218 B.C., Hannibal lost more than eighteen thousand men, two thousand horses, and several elephants in deadly slides in the Italian Alps. During the First World War, combatants launched explosives onto the slopes above enemy troops, triggering slides that killed more effectively than firepower - and, paradoxically, pioneered the technology now used to tame avalanches on ski slopes all over the world." "The White Death merges a fascinating natural history with a cautionary tale of the damage our sense of invincibility can do in the face of awesome natural power."--BOOK JACKET.