Negative Geology – A Cultural and Technical History of Early European Mountaineering

“Mountains mesmerise. Mediated by painters, writ­ers and thinkers, or viewed in person: rock and voluminous air tend to exercise an unsettling pull.”
Negative Geology: A Cultural and Technical History of Early European Mountaineering traces the inter­connect ed developments in literature, visual arts, philosophy and technics contributing to the continent’s intense interest in mountains. It searches for the early phases of a movement in which peaks be­came places of both ecstatic engagement and spiritual detachment in the mountaineering before Romanticism. Mountains were shaped into privi­leged sites of modernity by experiments with infra­structure and instruments occurring alongside aes­thetic, political, religious, and scientific upheavals.

“To depart earlier, is [Negative Geology’s] most pressing suggestion—just like the mountaineer who sets off at the crack of dawn.”


Swedish historian and critic Axel Andersson writes about nature, colonialism and art. His recent books include Den koloniala simskolan, Atlantvärlden and Absolut farmakon.