Predating the wheel, the ski has played an important role in our history. This is brilliantly brought to life in this engaging book. Roland Huntford's history begins 20,000 years ago in the last ice age on the icy tundra of an unformed earth. Man is a travelling animal, and on these icy slopes skiing began as a means of survival.That it has developed into the leisure and sporting pursuit of choice by so much of the globe bears testament to its elemental appeal. In polar exploration, it has changed the course of history. Elsewhere, in war and peace, it has done so too.The origins of skiing are bound up in with the emergence of modern man and the world we live in today.

PrefaceAcknowledgementsNoteMaps1. Skiing Necesse Est2. Ski Tracks in the Milky Way 3. The Earliest Written Sources 4. The Finnish National Epic: Kalevala 5. The First Printed 6. Norway - the Cradle of Skiing as a Sport7. The Influence of Rousseau 8. The Ski in Foreign Literature 9. Evolution of Skiing as a Sport 10. The Men of Telemark 11. Development of Technique and Equipment 12. The First Nordic Marathon 13. The Conquest of the Mountain World 14. Fridtjof Nansen and the First Crossing of Greenland 15. The Nordic Olympia 16. The Waisted Telemark Ski17. The Rise of Ski Touring and the Misadventures of Roald Amundsen18. As Important as the Plays of Ibsen 19. The Spread of Skiing on the Continent20. Norwegians Bring Skiing to Austria-Hungary and Montenegro 21. Skiing Comes to Switzerland 22. Davos23. The English Skiing at Davos 24. Mathias Zdarsky25. St. Moritz 26. Skiing in France27. Polar Exploration 28. The Inventions that Founded Modern Skiing 29. The New World30. The Study of Snow Structure31. The First Winter Olympics at Chamonix 32. Mass Winter Tourism33. The International Recognition of Downhill Skiing34. Skiing Mechanized and Politicized 35. Military Skiing 36. Skiing Since 1945 Bibliography