THE GREAT ARC by John Keay

We met last Saturday to discuss THE GREAT ARC. This is a fine book. It elevates what could have been a dull subject, the geographic survey of the Indian subcontinent, to a facinating look at the obsession of the men leading the project. The survey took fifty years and the lives of hundreds of men in malaria-infested jungles. But when it was done India became the most precisely charted region on the planet and we knew for certain that the highest mountain was Everest (pronounced EVE-rest). Recommended.