No Friends but the Mountains

Starred review from January 16, 2017
Determined to discover why violence flourishes in high-altitude areas, war correspondent Matloff (Fragments of a Forgotten War) investigates the cultures and ongoing conflicts of mountain ranges around the globe. She travels more than 72,000 miles to compile her survey, braving the mile-high battlefields of the ongoing Colombian civil war and the deadly Indian-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir, witnessing the destitution of the indigenous populations of Nepal and Mexico, and talking her way out of trouble with Russian police in Chechnya. Interviews with American veterans who fought in the high altitudes of Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush lead her to visit an Army mountain training center in Vermont’s (relatively small) Green Mountains; this excursion results in an even more intense journey to an Arctic NATO base in Norway. To cap off her journey, she focuses on Switzerland, a largely mountainous nation that outgrew its violent history to become a bastion of democracy and peace. This trip to some very different corners of the globe is recounted in clear, visceral language; vertigo sufferers may not enjoy some of the more harrowing moments, but Matloff’s investigation is a worthy read for foreign affairs and anthropology buffs alike, and her conclusion provides insight into current global affairs. 10 maps. Agent: Joy Harris, Joy Harris Literary.

January 1, 2017
A veteran journalist drops into the highest hotspots across the globe for a sobering account of why mountainous regions often engender violence."From Kentucky to Kashmir," Matloff (Conflict Reporting/Columbia School of Journalism; Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block, 2009, etc.) finds that mountainous regions--with their tendency toward insularity and suspicion regarding outsiders--disproportionately make up the most warlike zones on the planet. The author, who has visited many of these fraught elevations over the years, presents nine journalistic accounts from the front lines: Albania's northern Dinaric Alps, the Sierra Madre of southern Mexico; Colombia's Andes, Nepal's Himalayas, the Northern Caucasus of Chechnya and Dagestan, Kashmir, Afghanistan's Hindu Kush; Norway's Lyngen Alps, and the Pyrenees and Swiss Alps. In the final chapter, which covers the Swiss Alps, Matloff offers a kind of reality check of the efficacy of the lofty Swiss in keeping peace and unity for hundreds of years--namely, a loose confederation of self-governing cantons. Long-running disputes between clans can start legendary strife, such as in Albania, where blood feuds endure for generations. The Zapatistas of the Sierre Madre, descendants of the ancient Maya, have been battling the central government for centuries over land rights and equal treatment. The indigenous Rai, only 2.8 percent of Nepal's population and who live in the highest mountains in the world, are fighting the damming of their precious glacial waters, which, writes the author, also supply "Asian rivers on which billions of people depend." Matloff interviewed many inhabitants of these highlands, recording their hardscrabble ways of life and the deep reverence they hold for the mountains. Moreover, she observed the American military training at the Army's Mountain Warfare School in Jericho, Vermont, as they prepared for the harsh conditions in Afghanistan as well as Norway's Arctic Allied Training Center, "where NATO trains its most hardened men for the high cold." A tightly focused study of mountain societies that hints at future conflicts.

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March 15, 2017

Drawing upon her professional experience as a conflict journalist, Matloff (journalism, Columbia Univ.; Home Girl) explores the connections between contemporary mountain regions prone to conflict and the ethos of the people who inhabit them. Through thoughtful vignettes, she weaves personal narratives alongside relevant historical and present-day circumstances to relate regional stories that consistently refer to and affirm the global tale she seeks to tell. Seemingly influenced by fellow political travel writer Robert D. Kaplan's penchant for emphasizing geography to explain larger geopolitical, socioeconomic, and cultural phenomena, (e.g., his The Revenge of Geography and In Europe's Shadow), Matloff successfully ties together disparate mountain areas and cultures into a cohesive landscape of highlander have-nots that face both internal and external pressures affecting their homeland and way of life. VERDICT Not intended to be exhaustive or overly academic, this accessible read will appeal to those interested in geography's ability to alter the course of human events as well as its role in explaining global trends.--Matt Gallagher, Univ. of the Sciences, Philadelphia

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2017
Matloff's impressive and necessary work issues a moral imperative: pay attention to the mountain communities of the world, because they are in danger, which like water, flows downhill. This book examines the seeming causality between mountains and violence. A seasoned combat journalist, Matloff (Home Girl, 2008) visits a mountain range in each chapter, providing both the historical context for conflict there and a personal narrative. Ingredients that create brutal conditions for mountain people include poverty, government callousness, minority ethnic groups, a sacred attachment to the land, and contested water resources. In the Dinaric Alps of Albania, these factors combine with an ancestral tradition of blood feuds to oppress. In the Mexican Sierra Madres, a lack of resources and isolationism support a cycle of resistance and repression. The mountain people of Kashmir endure such deprivation and violence that they require psychological and soulful healing. Matloff approaches her topic with a magic combination of wisdom and empathy, and it is impossible to not be moved. In the final chapters, Vermont, Norway, and Switzerland offer models to improve the violent plight of mountain people and, by extension, improve us all.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)