SACRED MOUNTAINS OF THE WORLD by...

SACRED MOUNTAINS OF THE WORLD by Edwin Bernbaum (Sierra Club Books: $25; 291 pp . ). The silent grandeur of mountains has inspired religious feelings in people throughout the world, and Bernbaum surveys the cults surrounding individual peaks, from Annapurna and Fuji to Ayers Rock and Denali. Much of the text focuses on the problems of balancing respect for the beliefs of indigenous cultures with developers’ plans to exploit the terrain. (Legal battles continue between industrialists and Native Americans over the fate of several mountains in the southwestern United States.) Bernbaum’s efforts to link older religious experiences with the exhilaration of mountaineering seem unconvincing: It’s difficult to link modern city-dwellers who use the latest hi-tech gear to assault a peak with the simple pilgrims of bygone eras.