DOI: 10.1111/1600-0498.

12298

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

Elevation and emotion: Sven Hedin's mountain

expedition to Transhimalaya, 1906–1908

Staffan Bergwik

Department of Culture and Aesthetics,

Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract
The role of verticality in 19th- and 20th-century fields of
Correspondence
knowledge-making has received increased attention among
Staffan Bergwik, Department of Culture and
Aesthetics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, historians of science. Correspondingly, cultural historians
Sweden have explored the growing importance of a bird’s eye view
Email: staffan.bergwik@idehist.su.se
in popular culture throughout the 1800s. The elevated posi-
Funding information tions created in science and public discourse have both con-
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Grant/Award
Number: P17-0596:1
tributed to a modern ability to see the bigger picture. This
article investigates how the Swedish geographer Sven
SPECIAL ISSUE
Verticality in the History of Science
Hedin produced an elevated view through his expedition to
the Karakoram mountain range in Tibet between 1906 and
GUEST EDITORS
Wilko Graf von Hardenberg and
1908. Focusing on his travel narrative as a place where the
Martin Mahony elevated view was created and defined, I interpret Hedin's

This Special Issue was selected by a dedicated

ESHS committee after a public call for special
issues.
expedition as a part of initiatives in geography, at the turn
of the 20th century, to find a vertical means of representing
the world. In particular, this article demonstrates how the
overview, both literally and metaphorically, became an ideal
in Hedin's narrative. Moreover, I argue that Hedin's ele-
vated view contributed to an emotional economy of eleva-
tion. The alleged rational gaze of the overview was
combined with emotions and experiences of cold climate,
thin mountain air, vertigo, and awe. This article indicates
how affective states were included in the collection of data,
even when they threatened to blur the sensorium of the
observer. Third, through the analytical lens of an emotional
economy of elevation, I argue that Hedin's elevated view
mimicked the affective language of a Humboldtian

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
© 2020 The Authors. Centaurus published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Centaurus. 2020;62:647–669. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cnt 647

648 BERGWIK

tradition, while at the same time it contributed to the pop-

ular culture of the late 19th century with its fascination
for ascents and bird's-eye views. As a European celebrity,
Hedin reached massive crowds and contributed to the
establishment of the outlook from above as a crucial tech-
nique for understanding nature.

KEYWORDS
early 20th century, elevated view, emotional economy of
elevation, history of geography, Sven Hedin, Tibet

1 | I N T RO DU CT I O N

The Ding-La was the loftiest pass geographer Sven Hedin (1865–1952) traversed in Tibet. Located at 19,308 ft
(5,885 m), it offered opportunities to make observations from the “roof of the world.”1 Nothing hid the view, and
the geographer had “a comparatively clear view of the general habitus of the Tibetan landscape and of its most
striking characteristics.”2 From Tibetan passes, the traveler got the “most graphic impressions of the mountain
country as a whole”; from them, he “dominated” large areas without being preoccupied with “too much details.”3
While the view generated geographical knowledge, it was not experienced with the scholarly intellect alone. It
made the geographer astounded, mute, and dizzy. Hedin claimed that elevated viewpoints were even formidable
enough to challenge the power of description: “No language on earth contains words forcible enough to describe
the view.”4
Outside Sweden, Sven Hedin is a largely forgotten geographer in European history, but he was a well-known
explorer in the early 20th century. Leaving India for Tibet in 1906, his career reached its culmination upon his return
to Europe in 1909. A British newspaper dubbed him the Henry Stanley of Asia and pointed to his monumental suc-
cess.5 Existing biographies of Hedin have described his Asian journeys and his political engagements, producing nar-
ratives of an explorer with an irrepressible thirst for adventure, a great sense of national pride, and a sometimes
distorted self-image.6 While there is certainly some truth to that, I will not try to characterize the individual or his
biography. My aim is rather to recontextualize Hedin's mountain expedition to Tibet, and read it as part of a broader
history of elevation at the turn of the 20th century.
While neither his movement nor his gaze was strictly vertical, Sven Hedin's expedition to Tibet was marked by
the ambition to move upwards to look down on the landscape. Ideas about the epistemological quality of high places
in several fields of science have received increased scholarly attention over the last decade. In several studies, moun-
tains, balloons, and airplanes have been addressed as knowledge-making places and practices.7 In conversation with
this research, I ask, what and how did a geographer in the early 20th century see from above? I aim to investigate
the elevated view presented in Hedin's publications describing his journey in Tibet. The Swede gave meaning to and
managed the content of the outlook from up high through his travel narrative, which was aimed at a European public.

1
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, pp. 400, 410; Vol. 3, p. 31); Hedin (1909c, p. 390). All quotations from books and articles in Swedish have been translated by
the author.
2
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 1, p. xv). See also Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 2, pp. 258, 316; Vol. 4, p. 5); Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 102).
3
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 4, p. 67).
4
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 148).
5
Odelberg (2008, p. 31).
6
See, for example, Odelberg (2008); Wennerholm (1978).
7
Kohler & Vetter (2016, pp. 287–288); Bigg (2007); Bigg, Aubin, & Felsch (2009); Dorrian & Pousin (2013); Cosgrove (2001); Tucker (1996).
BERGWIK 649

This article, then, is about verticality as a culturally disseminated and popular perspective at the turn of the 20th
century.
First, I will argue that Sven Hedin's journey to Tibet was part of a historical process in which geographers cre-
ated elevated viewpoints and made them meaningful as knowledge-making practices. Historian Fraser MacDonald
has discussed how techniques to create vertical images of earth developed remarkably in the late 19th century.8
Indeed, according to Marie-Claire Robic, the view from above became a dominant form of visualization in geogra-
phy.9 Hedin traveled at a time when the blank spaces on the Western map of the world were all but gone. As one of
the last representatives of a 19th-century age of discovery, he partook in a broader shift from mapping practices
along the ground to techniques of vertical exploration of remote landscapes. As I will demonstrate, Hedin attributed
particular meaning to the idea and practice of overview and described it both literally and metaphorically. Moreover,
the overview was laden with an imperial logic of mastering landscape at a time of competing national interests in
Tibet and Himalaya. In Hedin's worldview, the rational understanding of the mountains, which emanated from the
overview, was embodied by the Western explorer. While Hedin carried scientific instruments on his trip, my main
concern is not how he measured height or other aspects of the landscape. The source material is discursive and pre-
sents overviews to a wide readership. In asking how the overview was presented to the consumers of Hedin's books,
I therefore focus more on knowledge dissemination than on knowledge production.
The sense of sight had a privileged status in Hedin's descriptions of experiencing the Tibetan landscape, yet the
elevated view was also constructed by balancing an ostensibly rational gaze with the emotional impact of high alti-
tude. The geographer saw large areas “perfectly clear,” yet he was also struck with awe, struggling to find words to
describe the scene. The outlook from up high depended upon, and instigated, a composite experience; it did not only
include the modality of sight. Therefore, and second, I argue that Hedin's elevated view contributed to an emotional
economy of elevation, specifically related to the creation of geographical knowledge from high places. The idea of an
emotional economy of science has been put forth by Paul White to understand the role of feelings in the history of
scientific knowledge-making. White argues that an emotional economy of science is “a contentious and flexible sys-
tem of powers and values” through which we can study the taxonomy, lineage, and effects of emotions. Existing
research has displayed how reason and emotion were separated on a rhetorical level in the modern era, while in
practice the cognitive and the affective have been co-dependent in the formation of scientific meaning.10 How then
did that interdependence play out in the case of Sven Hedin in Tibet? I shall reveal how emotional responses were
integral to, and regulated in, the elevated view.
While the emotional economy of elevation was negotiated in a community of geographical scholars, it was also,
in the words of White, a “dynamic” and “interactive” system.11 Put differently, the geographical discussions about
the emotional experiences of vertical viewpoints were located in an array of encounters with elevation in the late
19th century. Accordingly, and third, I argue that the outlook from above presented in Hedin's travel narrative reso-
nated with other experiences of elevation from the turn of the 20th century, and in particular with the sensory con-
text of an expanded visual field. There was a distinct influence from German explorer and naturalist Alexander von
Humboldt on Sven Hedin, to which I will return. To a large extent, the Swede mimicked a description of awe and the
sublime that went back to Humboldt at the turn of the 19th century. In this way, he added to a long-standing tension
in relation to mountains, pointed out by Veronica Della Dora, between “the circumscribable and the sublime.”12
Importantly, however, by the late 19th century that trope had been transformed into a historically specific con-
text of elevation as attraction. Separating Humboldtian and Romantic renditions of the awe-inducing experiences of
elevation from Sven Hedin was a broad, 19th-century development of spectator culture in which elevation played a
crucial role. Bird's-eye views proliferated, whether originating in ballooning, world exhibitions, gazing at cities from

8
MacDonald (2010, p. 196).
9
Robic (2013, p. 164).
10
White (2009, p. 793).
11
White (2009, p. 797).
12
Della Dora (2016, p. 25).
650 BERGWIK

towers, or seeing panoramas of landscapes. Several media encapsulated the bird's-eye view and transcended scien-
tific, aesthetic, and commercial boundaries.13 The emotional economy of elevation offered a way to address, engage,
and enroll the public into experiences of gazing from above. Sven Hedin was an entrepreneur, a geographer, and an
adventurer who worked hard to collect financial support for his travels. Throughout his life, he was dependent upon
his newspaper articles, books, and lectures being read and attended. Moreover, in offering vertically elevated views,
Hedin worked in a setting marked by a new consumer culture. There was a decidedly commercial side to his explora-
tions. Indeed, the emotional economy of elevation was also about money, markets, and the opportunity to sell the
view from above.

2 | T H E P U B L I C A T I O N S : A P L A C E F O R TH E E L E V A T E D V I E W

Like his predecessor Alexander von Humboldt, Hedin emphasized the importance of tools for measuring distances
and altitudes and determining the position of rivers, valleys, and summits.14 The Swede traveled with a collection of
chronometers, compasses, barometers, photographic apparatuses and plates, sketchbooks and notebooks, writing
materials, and field glasses.15 A caravan of men and animals transported his tools over high mountain passes. Never-
theless, it was in his publications that Hedin described his experiences of seeing from above. In the following, I read
his two major publications summarizing his travels as the places where he discussed the meaning and quality of the
elevated view and the emotional economy of elevation. A crucial methodological argument is that this discursive
material makes the elevated view accessible to historical analysis.
As noted by one of Hedin's biographers, Sten Selander, the geographer's words served the same purpose as
maps and panoramas: Hedin's travel narrative produced “illustrative word-paintings.” The sharpness of detail in
images and texts meant that “eventually, a whole image of the landscape of Central Asia emerges.”16 The results
from Hedin's journey were presented in Southern Tibet: Discoveries in Former Times Compared with My Own
Researches in 1906–1908 and Trans-Himalaya: Discoveries and Adventures in Tibet. The two publications differ in their
narrative styles: Southern Tibet envisioned a scholarly audience with its detailed reports of data about geographical
features; Hedin described it as “the scientific report” of his journey.17 Published between 1917 and 1923, it has been
described as a “monument.”18 The nine volumes cover the geography, orography, geology, and hydrography of the
area, as well as the work of previous travelers.19 Trans-Himalaya, published in three volumes, was described by the
Swede as his “popular work” on the journey. It was written with a broader audience in mind, telling stories of adven-
tures, secluded monks, harsh weather, and wild yaks.20 Southern Tibet was originally published in English, while
Trans-Himalaya was first published in Swedish and only later translated into English, German, French, Dutch, Italian,
and Russian, among other languages.21
The differing characters of the two publications mirror transformations in geography in the late 19th century. A
dominant paradigm was lacking, and influential actors tried to give the disciplinary meaning to the academic field.22
One of the contended issues was the persona of the geographer, balancing between a public explorer and an aca-
demic scientist. The debates immersed in the wake of the creation of institutions, publications, conferences, and aca-
demic chairs. This institutionalization was a broad European and American undertaking, and while the meetings and

13
Ekström (2009, p. 187). See also Classen (2014, p. 17).
14
Debarbieux (2009, p. 100).
15
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 1, p. 29). See also Wahlquist (2019).
16
Selander (1953, pp. 6, 7).
17
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 101).
18
Andersson (1932, p. 65).
19
In the following, only Volumes 1–4 are used as source material, since the other parts cover geology, meteorology, and other related fields, and are co-
authored with other scholars.
20
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 1, p. xii).
21
Wennerholm (1978, p. 296).
22
Martin (2005, p. 163).
BERGWIK 651

periodicals of these institutions were primarily devoted to accounts of scientific explorations, the community of
geographers also encompassed publicly renowned travelers.23 Geographers wanting to create more academic geog-
raphy leveled criticism against what they considered to be too much public appeal and sensationalism. Distinctions
between adventurers and scientific geographers were debated throughout the 19th century.24
Sven Hedin was a representative of geography who managed to operate on the border between science and
sensation.25 He was an academically educated geographer who presented his results to geographic societies, publi-
shed articles in geographic journals, and received honors from geographical institutions across Europe.26 Upon
returning from Tibet in February 1909, he presented his discoveries to massive crowds in London, Manchester, Paris,
and Berlin, but also to smaller circles of geographers, for instance in the Royal Geographical Society (RGS).27 The
Swede became an international celebrity, telling stories that were a “sensation of the time” and attracting interest
from notables such as Theodore Roosevelt, Pope Pius X, Emperor Mutsuhito, and Tsar Nicholas II, all of whom
wished to meet him after his journey to Tibet.28
The blurred boundary between sober science and sensational discovery was echoed in Hedin's publications.
While the geographer himself pointed out the differences between Southern Tibet and Trans-Himalaya, an exagger-
ated emphasis on the demarcation between them obscures the similarities. Narrative was part of Hedin's scientific
apparatus and, despite their differences, both Southern Tibet and Trans-Himalaya contain literary descriptions of
viewing the Tibetan landscape from up high. In both works, epistemological and emotional qualities of seeing from
above were made explicit.

3 | T H E M AP P E D G L O B E A N D V ER T I C A L EX P LO R A T I O N S

It was on August 14, 1906 that Sven Hedin left the town of Leh in Kashmir to embark on a journey, with the ambi-
tion of mapping parts of the highlands of Tibet. North of Tsangpo, the upper stream of the Brahmaputra, was a part
of the Karakoram mountain range that Hedin claimed had not yet been mapped. “I called it Transhimalaya, because it
was on the other side and beyond the Himalaya.”29 Accompanied by a caravan of approximately 120 horses and
mules, the Swedish geographer crossed the mountains numerous times between 1906 and 1908.30 While acknowl-
edging that several parts of Tibet and the Karakoram range had been traversed before, Hedin maintained that “this
elevated part of the earth's crust” had not been mapped thoroughly.31 He pointed to Sir Clements Markham's state-
ment in The Geographical Journal, that “nothing in Asia is of greater geographical importance than the exploration of
this range of mountains”.32
A self-proclaimed explorer, Sven Hedin was a geographer by training, although he had never been affiliated with
a university (Figure 1). The journey to Transhimalaya was his third trip to Asia. At the age of 28, he had made his first
visit to the continent—between 1893 and 1897—and traveled the mountains of Pamir, mapped glaciers and lakes,
and described two ancient cities along the river Tarim. His second journey lasted from 1899 to 1902 and was
focused on hydrological and geological studies of Tarim and “the wandering lake” Lop Nor. Between 1927 and 1935
he traveled to China on a grander expedition, at the head of about 50 Swedish, Chinese, and German researchers.
Hedin had studied geography at Uppsala University, as well as under the German Ferdinand von Richthofen at Frie-
drich Wilhelm University in Berlin. In 1892, he received a doctorate in geography from the University of Halle. His

23
Martin (2005, pp. 157–158); Livingstone (1992, pp. 156, 177); Robic (2003, pp. 379–381).
24
Livingstone (1992, pp. 156, 172); Driver (2001, pp. 1–2); Heggie (2014, pp. 328–332).
25
Naylor & Ryan (2010, p. 11); Baigent (2010, pp. 24–30).
26
Selander (1953, p. 19).
27
Odelberg (2008, pp. 294–302).
28
Wennerholm (1978, p. 93); Odelberg (2008, pp. 30, 302).
29
Hedin (1925/2003, p. 356).
30
Romgard (2013); Hedin (1925/2003, p. 319); Hedin (1909b, p. 161).
31
Hedin (1909b, pp. 11–12).
32
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 408). See also Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 3, pp. 140, 151, 160–162); Hedin (1909a, pp. 397–398); Heffernan (2009, pp. 8–9).
652 BERGWIK

F I G U R E 1 Sven Hedin in his study at Norra

Blasieholmen in Stockholm in 1898. Photographer
unknown. Sven Hedin private family album, vol. 1,
Sven Hedin photo archives, Stockholm. Reprinted
with permission from the Sven Hedin Foundation
[Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

studies created a lifelong sympathy for Germany, leading to strong bonds to the Third Reich throughout the 1930s
and 1940s. As a personal friend to Adolf Hitler, he gave the inaugural speech at the Berlin Olympic games in
1936.33 Hedin had already voiced “pan-German” sensibilities at the turn of the 20th century, and he remained a
strong critic of Russia and the emerging socialist movement. Indeed, he signed onto the geopolitical ideas of other
German-trained geographers that Germany had valid imperial claims and constituted a natural entity in
Mitteleuropa. The threat against Germany and European stability, according to these geopolitical arguments, came
from Russia above all.34 These ideas and alliances have made Hedin infamous in Swedish history. In his native
country, he was an advocate for the age-old societal institutions that were faced with changing times. The last
Swede to be ennobled, he remained a staunch defender of the Swedish crown at a time of democratization and a
growing labor movement.35
Hedin fit the criteria of 19th-century “geography militant” in Joseph Conrad's periodization: adventurous men
who mapped the continents and were “sometimes swallowed up by the mystery their hearts were so persistently set
on unveiling.”36 Although he repeatedly described himself as such, the image of a lone explorer in uncharted territory
is more the result of Hedin's rhetoric than of historical reality. The Swede was accompanied in his travels by native
assistants. He also received financial and symbolic backing from an elite network of supporters in Sweden, including
King Oscar II and the Nobel family.37 Moreover, he was already, at the outset of his journey, a well-known explorer
who had repeatedly been in the public eye. Indeed, even when climbing the mountain passes of Tibet, Hedin was
connected to the world back home, situating himself at the center of a European context of scholarly activities and
popular culture outlets from which he could create and distribute the elevated view to interested audiences.
The self-image Hedin crafted in his writings fulfilled core ideals of the late 19th-century age of discovery, for
instance in his repeated wish to travel to new landscapes and lay eyes on a peak, a species, or an area for the first

33
Odelberg (2008); Romgard (2013).
34
Danielsson (2012, pp. 4, 48, 54).
35
Odelberg (2008); Romgard (2013); Wahlquist (2019).
36
Quoted from Driver (2001, p. 3).
37
Odelberg (2008, pp. 246–247).
BERGWIK 653

time.38 His own intentions in traveling to Tibet, as they emerge in his writings, centered on priority, on being the first
to discover unknown lands. He stated that he aimed for the “white spots” of Tibet, and that “I never walk in my own
footprints. That is against my religion.”39 Of particular importance to him was finding the sources of the Brahmaputra
and Indus rivers, and he claimed to have done so in his work. This particular question had been a long-standing prob-
lem among geographers. The issue of being first to explore unchartered terrain was contended, as the period of
geography militant was drawing to a close. The Swede even described himself as one of the last representatives of a
waning geographical paradigm. “The four final decades of the nineteenth century may be called the last phase of the
great age of geographical discovery.”40 In texts celebrating his achievements, contemporary commentators argued
that he was the last of the “great explorers,” the likes of which “can never emerge simply because the habitable parts
of earth have no more white spots.”41
A host of late 19th-century intellectuals and popular authors argued that the globe would soon be fully mapped.
Only the poles, the oceans, and “the third pole”—Himalaya—remained to be discovered. In the 1890s in particular,
the world seemed to be rapidly shrinking and the unmapped spots on earth depleting. There was a sense of fin du
globe.42 Scientific, technological, and political changes created notions about the earth being drawn together,
encircled and encapsulated by the modern gaze. Both fears and expectations were manifested concerning “the clo-
sure of global space,” the idea being that the entire earth had been mapped and that the pieces from all corners of
the world had been integrated into a new whole.43 In 1909, French geographer Jean Brunhes argued that “the limits
of our cage” had been reached.44 Against this backdrop, turn-of-the-20th-century geography saw attempts to trans-
form the practice of mapping—central to the age of discovery—into technologies that offered a new and literally
“vertical” exploration of the planet.45 Indeed, according to Lachlan Fleetwood, the first half of the 19th century saw
the rise of the idea that “natural phenomena needed to be mapped in three dimensions.” Measuring altitude increas-
ingly became a matter of understanding “global verticality.”46 Sven Hedin contributed to this process by producing
photographs, hand-drawn panoramas, maps, and—most important for this article—travel narratives that described
outlooks from up high.

4 | THE CONTEXT OF MOUNTAINEERING

According to Peter Hansen, mountaineering is an integral part of the modern identity because it highlights the auton-
omous individual on the summit, in control of nature. The practices of mountaineering underscored the value of
being first, and the sentiment was only possible to cultivate in a modern style of thinking. Mountain peaks engen-
dered notions of “sovereignty, masculinity and modernity.”47 It is a commonplace in existing research on mountain-
eering that, starting in the late 18th century, a reinterpretation of mountains occurred. Mountaineering and the
Enlightenment arrived together, and mountains were no longer seen as beyond human control and understanding.
Instead, they were increasingly appreciated and viewed as potential objects of rational understanding.48 Later,
throughout the 19th century, mountaineering turned into an endeavor undertaken for its own sake, as a battle
between man and nature in which the former would conquer summits and peaks. Moreover, mountains started to be
envisioned as natural laboratories, and European explorers considered them special places in terms of experience

38
Selander (1953, p. 10); Driver (2001, p. 9).
39
Hedin (1925/2003, p. 435).
40
Hedin (1904, p. 524). See also Hedin (1909c, p. 357).
41
Selander (1953, pp. 11–12).
42
Williams (2013, pp. x, 3, 9).
43
Cosgrove (2001, pp. 207, 220–221). See also Heffernan (2009, p. 13).
44
Robic (2003, p. 383).
45
Robic (2003, p. 383).
46
Fleetwood (2018, p. 6).
47
Hansen (2013, p. 2).
48
Hansen (2013, pp. 4–11); Della Dora (2016, pp. 67–69, 79).
654 BERGWIK

and scientific curiosity.49 This cluster of ideas about man conquering nature is readily present in Hedin's discourse
on the elevated view and in the emotional economy of elevation which saw the body as an integral part of mapping
Transhimlaya.
Nevertheless, I wish to insist on the fact that Hedin does not fit neatly into the history of mountaineering and
mountain science. First, he did not strive to break height records, nor did he climb peaks in the Karakoram. Indeed, it
would be incorrect to label him a mountaineer, as the majority of his expeditions took place in the lowlands and
deserts of Asia. He was first and foremost a public geographer. Second, he did not contribute to mountain science as
a particular genre of scholarly investigation. Research on scientific mountaineering in the 19th century has focused
on the establishment of laboratories in elevated environments or on how mountain science cleared the way to new
understandings of human physiology.50 Sven Hedin neither established laboratories nor concerned himself with
scholarly study of the bodily effects of high altitude. Third, previous studies have described in depth how the moun-
tains challenged and obstructed the use of instruments, inscriptions, and bodies in knowledge production.51
Although Hedin very likely experienced similar difficulties, such issues are not present in the ways Southern Tibet and
Trans-Himalaya conveyed elevated views to readers.
Why then relate Hedin's travel to the history of mountaineering and mountain science? The main reason is that
his narrative repeated descriptions of seeing from high altitude which were published in the early 19th century.
First and foremost, Hedin echoed the idea that mountains offered an overview that gave a privileged perspective.
Mountaineering was considered a productive way to explore nature, and observations from mountaintops could
form the basis of a coherent understanding of landscapes. The idea was put forth by several naturalists who took an
interest in mountains. The professor of natural history Horace Bénédict de Saussure, in his Voyages dans les Alps,
argued that from high places, the mountain-climber could make acute observations of general natural patterns.
When elevated, the eyes of the naturalist could summon and view “a multitude of objects.” The professor, naturalist
and poet Albrecht von Haller also spoke of how the gaze from mountaintops revealed “the theatre of the world.”
From the summit of mountains, the explorer could see the proportions and structures of nature “in a single view.”52
The most influential proponent of this idea was Alexander von Humboldt. The German polymath was interested in
the world as an integrated whole, moved by internal forces. He argued that nature should be understood as con-
nected in an indissoluble chain. Moreover, he claimed that summits and high sierras offered opportunities to obtain a
general picture of nature. While standing on a peak, the eye of the geographer could embrace many objects at
once.53 The potential of mountains to offer a clear vision has been described as a general trope of 19th-century geo-
graphical discourse.54 Mountaintops were assumed to present opportunities to develop “global views of heavens
and earth.”55
Second, in his writings, Hedin repeated an established narrative connected to mountaineering that highlighted
how elevation in the mountains created awe, vertigo, and a sense of the sublimity of nature. The men who started to
explore mountains at the turn of the 19th century cultivated “an experiment in sensation—in the sublime.” Moreover,
they contemplated the disorientation that emanated from the vertiginous character of the peaks and passes they
sought out in the Alps.56 Turn-of-the-19th-century naturalists—of whom Humboldt is a prominent example—pointed
out that “to view all of creation” induced vertigo. The sublimity of nature made the observer breathless.57 Drawing
on the work of philosophers like Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant, Humboldt preached a way of exploration in
which the observer could both see in overview and experience nature as beautiful and sublime.58

49
Hansen (2013, pp. 180–181); Cosgrove & Della Dora (2009, pp. 4–5, 8); Heggie (2016, p. 813).
50
See, for instance, Cosgrove & Della Dora (2009, p. 12); Heggie (2016); Bigg, Aubin, & Felsch (2009).
51
See, for instance, Fleetwood (2018).
52
Hansen (2013, pp. 44, 57, 101).
53
Finkelstein (2000); Della Dora (2016, p. 167).
54
Cosgrove & Della Dora (2009, pp. 4–5); Debarbieux (2009, pp. 98–101).
55
Bigg, Aubin, & Felsch (2009, p. 313).
56
Della Dora (2016, pp. 79, 80–81).
57
Hansen (2013, pp. 44, 60, 143).
58
Bunkse (1981, p. 138).
BERGWIK 655

Much has been written about Humboldt's influence on different fields of natural science.59 Here, I merely wish to indi-
cate that his approach combined observation of the structure and “physiognomy” of the landscape, in its larger, and even
global, character, with poetic and aesthetic description.60 The Humboldtian description of rational overview and experi-
ences of the sublime was cultivated throughout the 19th century by explorers in Asia, such as the German brothers Her-
mann, Adolph, and Robert Schlagintweit.61 Hedin carefully studied the work of the Germans, and just like the
Schlagintweit brothers he depended upon British support for his trip. They shared an interest in the orography of Asia, and
in particular in the relationship between the Himalayan and Karakorum mountains.62 Moreover, the Germans and the
Swede each collected massive amounts of data in order to display the characteristics of an entire region and portray the
sublimity of the landscape.63 As I shall indicate below, sentiments of awe, vertigo, and the sublime were key components
in the emotional economy of elevation that Hedin described. Indeed, the presentation of the landscape in both rational
and emotional ways reverberated in Southern Tibet, and even more so in Trans-Himalaya.

5 | TH E U N O B S T RU CT ED OV E R V I E W

From mountains of staggering heights—sometimes equaling an “Eiffel Tower on the summit of Mont Blanc”—Sven
Hedin produced word-paintings that brought forth the experience of looking down on the landscape: “the whole
earth lies at my feet.”64 Put differently, Hedin created a literary overview effect. In Trans-Himalaya, he reported on
how the surface of the earth appeared, and how the structures of the mountains became visible when one looked at
them from up high.65 Gorges and dells appeared small from above, whereas rivers and plains became visible. At some
points, looking down meant that the surrounding plains looked “perfectly level to the eye.”66
The literary overview effect was also created through Hedin's writing style in Trans-Himalaya and Southern Tibet.
The narrative is organized chronologically and recounts the journey: the volumes start when Hedin's trip commenced
and end when the journey finished. Moreover, the narrative in both, but particularly in Southern Tibet, is painstakingly
detailed. Hedin takes the reader on a trip, on a day-to-day basis, from each camp to the next. In Volume 4 of South-
ern Tibet, Hedin explained that “the words and lines of the book accumulate to a general description,” comparable to
the panoramas of the area he produced.67
Geographers in the early 20th century were adamant about the correct way one should look to capture a region
in a representative way.68 In the case of Sven Hedin, the challenges of a complicated landscape were severe, as the
observer was faced with a “hopeless labyrinth” of mountains, ridges, ranges, and peaks.69 Indeed, Hedin explained to
the readers of Trans-Himalaya that it was difficult to find “any kind of orographical order or plausible systematic
arrangement of the mountains.”70 In the face of such complexities, the elevated view became productive because it
offered “an uninterrupted view.”71 From elevated places in Transhimalaya, he could “take in at a single glance an
enormous block of the earth's crust.” From above, the view became more “instructive.”72 From camps at high alti-
tude, he “perceived fairly clearly how the land lay”; glaciers and peaks “stood out with remarkable sharpness.”73 In

59
See, for instance, Finkelstein (2000, p. 181); Bunkse (1981, p. 129).
60
Della Dora (2016, p. 171).
61
Finkelstein (2000, pp. 180–183).
62
Wahlquist (2019, p. 203).
63
Finkelstein (2000, p 183).
64
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 3, p. 1).
65
See, for example, Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 1, pp. 66, 86); Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 3, p. 279); Hedin (1925/2003, p. 258).
66
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 2, p. 321; Vol. 3, p. 349). See also Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 3, pp. 329, 339; Vol. 4, p. 13); Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 1, p. 278).
67
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 4, p. 29).
68
Robic (2013, p. 164).
69
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 2, p. 256); Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 20, 92, 100, 308). See also Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 2, pp. 257, 325; Vol. 3, 252,
254, 301).
70
Hedin (1909c, p. 353).
71
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 380). See also Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 2, p. 260).
72
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, pp. 4, 34, 92); Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 2, p. 256).
73
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, pp. 95–96). See also Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 20); Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 2, p. 261; Vol. 3, p. 362).
656 BERGWIK

emphasizing the overview, Hedin added to discourse in geography on the particular quality of elevation. Other geog-
raphers maintained that geographical phenomena became understandable when they were experienced from a dis-
tance. Seeing from above was even turned into a metaphor for the geographical method.74 The idea of the overview
as both a literal practice and an epistemological ideal was highlighted in experiences of panoramic visions in science
throughout the 19th century.75
Sven Hedin repeatedly stated his wish to be the first Westerner to experience a landscape. According to his rhe-
toric, he refused to turn back and walk in his own footsteps, since he longed for terrain where no European had been
before.76 Nevertheless, that position was increasingly untenable, since old ideas about the discovery of virgin lands
faded. Hedin was accused by his critics in Sweden as well as in Britain of merely mapping territory that was already
well-known. Several members of the RGS in London publicly attacked him for claiming to have been the first
explorer in areas they had already mapped. While the Swedish explorer received support from influential actors like
Lord Minto, he was criticized by others, such the former head of the Survey of India, Sir Thomas Holdich.77
By and large, Hedin was too late to literally be the first to see the areas he traveled through. The ambition to cre-
ate an overview did not strictly depend on having priority in seeing the landscape. The Swedish geographer leveled
criticism against old stories from Jesuits, natives, and earlier explorers. Their data, claimed Hedin, had “never been
transferred to modern maps.”78 To his peers in geography, the Swede argued for the scientific legitimacy of his trip
by emphasizing how he ordered and visualized geographical information about the mountains. Some commentators
acknowledged that, if nothing else, Sven Hedin was the first to clarify the “layout of the mountain range and the area
as a whole.”79 The fact that he published all his observations, down to the minutest details, and that he did “exact
topographical work” meant that he had correctly placed remote parts of Asia “on the world map.”80 While facing crit-
icism from some, he was saluted by the viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, who stated that “it was reserved for
Dr. Hedin” to trace Transhimalaya “on the spot and to place it upon the map in its long, unbroken and massive signif-
icance.”81 The uninterrupted overview entailed both a literal position above the landscape, looking down upon it,
and an epistemological understanding of a large and complicated environment.
To further unpack how Hedin presented the unobstructed overview, I want to highlight three themes. First,
he claimed that the elevated position enabled the observer to see farther than he could while standing in the
bottom of a valley. Hedin argued that, since nothing obstructed the view, his gaze could reach unusual dis-
tances.82 On May 19, 1907, the Swede crossed the Teta-la pass, from which he had a “brilliant view over the
whole Teri-nam-tso, Trans-Himalaya, Targo-gangri, and Shakangsham. In this clear atmosphere, one sees some
100 miles distant.”83 Indeed, in describing his experience from one of the elevated places, Hedin pointed out
that “one's gaze reaches with the utmost clarity to extreme distances, only the horizon erects a boundary for
the visible.”84
Second, the unobstructed overview he described was compatible with an orographic understanding of the area
in Western Tibet. As was the case with mapping, there was a correspondence between what could be seen from the
elevated view and the study of the topographic relief of mountains. A “distant view” was connected to a
“clear comprehension of the orographical arrangement.”85 The Karakorum mountains could, from the point of view
of “genetic orography,” be named “the backbone of High Asia.”86 Hedin stated how “every new pass over the head

74
Robic (2013, p. 171).
75
Bigg (2007, p. 94).
76
See, for example, Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 3, pp. 260, 324); Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 3, p. 1).
77
Odelberg (2008, pp. 296–301); Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 3, p. 140).
78
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 401).
79
Selander (1953, p. 11).
80
Andersson (1932, p. 65).
81
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 413).
82
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 4, p. 67). See also Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, pp. 35, 393); Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 4, p. 21 & 71).
83
Hedin (1909c, p. 382).
84
Hedin (1980, p. 174). See also Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 3, p. 279; Vol. 4, p. 21).
85
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 3, p. 278). See also Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 3, p. 310).
86
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 4, p. 3).
BERGWIK 657

range will make the complicated orography clearer and open new perspectives.”87 Gazing from up high enabled him
to see how the isolated point in the shape of a pass was part of a larger ramification of mountains. Time and again in
Trans-Himalaya, Hedin argued for the importance of elevation: from such points, “sharply marked orographic lines”
were visible. With “every day's march the orographical configuration becomes clearer, and soon the leading features
of the blank space will be nearly all ascertained.”88
Third, the unobstructed overview resonated with a gaze set on mapping the landscape. The map was cele-
brated among geographers as a potent means of offering accuracy and completeness in visualizing the terrain.
Indeed, it took a similar shape to the view from above, offering an overview and a productive substitute for the
experience in the field.89 Sven Hedin was an able cartographer and creating maps was a crucial part of his expedi-
tion. The maps included in Southern Tibet covered an area five times the size of Sweden.90 Intermittently in Trans-
Himalaya, Hedin described how traveling in the mountains had meant that the “bird's eye view” became “more
and more like a map, and the landscape behind us grows more distinct and extensive.” From the Lunkar-La pass,
“the Tarok-tso lies below the spectator as on a map.”91 In that sense, the gaze from up high had the potential to
form the basis for mapping, while also, like maps, furthering an epistemologically productive way of seeing the
landscape. In linking map-making to the elevated view, Hedin contributed to a process that gathered intensity at
the turn of the 20th century and through which “overhead imaging”—based on balloons, aircraft, and later rockets
and satellites—was connected to the construction and use of maps.92
Apart from his travel narrative, Hedin also produced images to create overview. Like Humboldt and the
Schlagintweit brothers, the Swede took great pains to record the landscape through photographs, drawings, and
paintings.93 During his trip, he sketched 552 panoramas, collected in a separate volume entitled Southern Tibet: Atlas
of Tibetan Panoramas. As I have discussed elsewhere, Hedin combined the hand-drawn panoramas with panoramic
photographs and water-color paintings to describe the landscape and its geographical features. Indeed, images fur-
ther underscored the importance of vision and of the world in overview as a desirable object.94 For instance, Hedin
created photographic panoramas by taking pictures “forming a consecutive series.”95 The images were later over-
lapped to create a wider scope once published (Figure 2). The geographical outlook was not to be interrupted by the
edges of the photograph. This technique, photogrammetry, was used in other natural sciences as well, and it had also
been utilized in the construction of popular panoramas.96
The hand-drawn panoramas that accompanied Southern Tibet were crucial to Hedin. He drew an image at virtu-
ally every pass on his journey, and they served to complement the photographic equipment in visually recreating
what his eyes could see. At one point, he explained to the readers of Trans-Himalaya, he had sat “for nearly four
hours drawing a panorama which embraced the whole horizon” (Figure 3).97
According to Hedin, the key function of the sketched panoramas was topographical. They portrayed the volume
of the landscape in contrast to the flat and strictly vertical view presented in maps. The panoramas could give an idea
of the layout of the landscape, including areas he had not been able to travel through.98 Together with text and
maps, Hedin's sketches enabled the observer to “recognize all the topographical details.”99
The unobstructed overview emerged from a combination of image and text. In fact, Hedin pointed out the
necessity of a combined reading. “The text in the following chapters will be much better understood if the

87
Hedin (1909c, p. 370).
88
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 1, p. 66; Vol. 2, p. 397).
89
Robic (2013, p. 164); Wahlquist (2019, pp. 201–202).
90
Selander (1953, pp. 7–8).
91
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 1, p. 66; Vol. 2, p. 392).
92
Monmonier (2015, pp. xxv–xxvi).
93
Wahlquist (2019, p. 203).
94
Bergwik (2018, pp. 192–194); Wahlquist (2019).
95
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 102).
96
Bergwik (2018, p. 195).
97
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 102).
98
Bergwik (2018, pp. 200–201).
99
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 4, p. 5).
658 BERGWIK

F I G U R E 2 Panorama taken by Sven Hedin 20 September 1906 from south of Lake Lighten in Aksai Chin, NW
Tibet at an altitude of 5.095 meters. Photos mounted on cardboard for publication. Sven Hedin photo archives,
Stockholm. No call number. Reprinted with permission from the Sven Hedin Foundation [Color figure can be viewed
at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

F I G U R E 3 A hand-drawn panorama made by Sven Hedin. From Southern Tibet: Atlas of Tibetan Panoramas
(illustrations 494–497), by S. Hedin, 1917, Stockholm, Sweden: Lithographic Institute of the General Staff of the
Swedish Army. Reproduction by the National Library of Sweden (Kungliga biblioteket). Reprinted with permission of
the Sven Hedin Foundation

corresponding panoramas are studied simultaneously. Text and illustrations have to follow each other.”100 Figure 4 is
a case in point. The lower section is a continuation of the upper, and together the two sections form a 360 pano-
rama. The image was published in Southern Tibet, folded to fit into the book. The reader could unfold the picture and
be presented with the experience of an overview. The panorama was thought to be a proxy for standing at the
mountain pass gazing at the surroundings.

100
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 4, pp. 4–5). See also Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 102).
BERGWIK 659

F I G U R E 4 Unfolded panoramic image. From Southern Tibet: Discoveries in former times compared with my own
researches in 1906–1908 (Vol. 2, p. 262), by S. Hedin, 1917–1922, Stockholm, Sweden: Lithographic Institute of the
General Staff of the Swedish Army. Reproduction by the National Library of Sweden (Kungliga biblioteket). Reprinted
with permission of the Sven Hedin Foundation [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Sections of text in Southern Tibet and Trans-Himalaya, including captions, steered the reader's gaze towards under-
standing in overview. Images and words were joined together thematically, sharing the panorama as a motif. In fact,
Hedin repeatedly described the panoramic outlook with words as well.101 Describing the scenery from various locations
in great detail, he explained to the reader how such places presented “a very extensive and most instructive view.”102
In sum, photographs, hand-drawn panoramas, and texts contributed to making the overview intelligible and meaningful.

6 | T H E OV E R V I E W A N D I M P E R I A L S EN S I BI L I T Y

The effort to create an overview also entailed deep-seated connections to imperialism and its procedures of master-
ing and controlling landscapes. Previous studies on the history of mountain science have indicated how, during the
19th century, the work of traveling across mountains was connected to exploration as a civilizing project.103 At the
turn of the 20th century, the Alps had already been mapped, and European explorers had taken an interest in moun-
tains in Africa as well as increasingly in Himalaya.104 Hedin's efforts must thus be understood as being consonant
with the efforts of European imperial enterprises in the wake of the Congress of Berlin in 1878. He acted as a geog-
rapher in the context of a dominant discourse of empire, visible, for instance, in ideas about “white spots” on the
map and the value of being first.105
There was also a local context of the imperial interests of European powers in the region where Hedin traveled.
Himalaya, as the northern border of British India, had already emerged as an area of concern in the early 19th cen-
tury, and throughout that century the region constituted the frontier of the empire. When Hedin arrived in 1906,
however, the interests of the British had been challenged by the Russian empire, and both imperial powers had
sought to control the area along the Himalayan frontier for half a century. During this period, known as “The Great
Game,” the region became a “playground of Europe” marked by colonial exploration. Individual explorers from the
two powers, as well as spies and parties performing surveys, had been, and continued to be, present in the region.

101
Bergwik (2018, pp. 203–205).
102
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 2, p. 95).
103
Hansen (2013, p. 210).
104
Della Dora (2016, pp. 90–91).
105
Danielsson (2012, pp. 12–13).
660 BERGWIK

The British feared a Russian invasion from the north, and accordingly had a strong interest in the path through Tibet
between India, Russia, and China.106
The politics of colonialism affected the way Hedin networked to enable his travels, for instance by seeking and
gaining support from viceroy Lord Curzon. Nevertheless, as a Swede, he did not represent a great imperial power
with vested interests in the region. While the difference between British imperialism and Swedish lack thereof in the
region is evident, there were also similarities between Hedin's imperial sensibilities and those of contemporary Brit-
ish geographers like Halford Mackinder, in particular through the idea of overview. Marie-Claire Robic has described
how colonial projects produced the ability to assemble parts of the earth into a whole: a unified planet, yet one under
the control of Western imperial powers. More broadly, previous research has firmly established that geography
became “the queen of all imperial sciences.”107
Like contemporaries such as Mackinder, Hedin displayed a geographical imagination that presented the world as
an “imperial georama.” The overview was part of an attitude to the landscape as a controlled, even possessed, space;
it gave the ability to roam with one's intellect over large expanses of the earth.108 The idea of the elevated position
granting the natural philosopher a position to “dominate” the landscape, even the whole “Globe,” had been voiced
already in the exploration of the Alps in the late 18th century.109 In the case of Hedin, the sentiment was mixed with
a historically more specific idea about mapping at the highest point of European imperialism. On the Sur-la pass, the
Swedish geographer was filled with an “indescribable feeling of satisfaction. I felt like a powerful sovereign in his
own country.”110 He explained that he was “proud and delighted to know that I am the first white man to penetrate
to this wilderness.”111
Hedin traveled with scientific instruments, but also with the help of local guides, carriers, and assistants, who
rarely appear as individual knowledge-makers in his descriptions of the journey to Tibet. Moreover, according to
Hedin's descriptions, it was precisely the ability to create an overview that separated the explorer from the native
assistants. In Trans-Himalaya, he contrasted the wish of European geographers to create “a whole picture,” including
“perspective and proportion” and an ability to embrace a totalizing view, with the Tibetans' “idealized” images of the
landscape.112 As described by Kapil Raj, who focuses on native Indians, there were local inhabitants working as assis-
tants in expeditions mapping the Himalaya. They became known as “pundits” and were frequently given attention in
Western media.113 These pundits, however, were not part of Hedin's knowledge-making. Although he respected his
assistants and collected oral information from Tibetans, their “stories” were not to be trusted. They tried to relate
the position of passes, lakes, and rivers, yet when Hedin tried to “put them together,” they ended up in a “terrible
jumble of contradictions.”114 The “natives” could not obtain “accurate information” because they did not possess
“that spirit of critical inquiry … that distinguish[es] the European traveler.”115 His local travel companions were more
prone to “the worship of the mountain.”116
In sum, Sven Hedin translated the imperial and possessive European gaze into a specific context of the elevated
view and the productive character of overview. The patterns that interested the explorer caught his eye because he
had an outlook from above. “My feet stand on the oceanic watershed, my eyes roam over this huge system.” He then
shifted to a discourse filled with imperial sentiment about priority. He loved the landscape “as my own possession.
For the part where I now stand was unknown and waited a million years for my coming.” His “desire and hope” was
to “fill up on the map the great white blank north of the Tsangpo.” Although it would take “generations of explorers”

106
Fleetwood (2018, pp. 4, 30); Finkelstein (2000, p. 195); Isserman & Weaver (2010, pp. 18–19); Raj (2002, p. 159); Danielsson (2012, pp. 20–21).
107
Heffernan (2009, p. 10); Robic (2003, pp. 382–383); Livingstone (1992, pp. 125–130); Danielsson (2012, p. 47).
108
Ryan (1994, p. 169).
109
Hansen (2013, p. 58); Della Dora (2016, p. 108).
110
Hedin (1925/2003, p. 441). See also Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 3, p. 177).
111
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 376).
112
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 131). See also Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 3, pp. 299, 315).
113
Raj (2002, p. 159).
114
Hedin (1909b, pp. 170–171). See also Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, pp. 30, 32, 33).
115
Hedin (1909a, p. 407).
116
Hedin (1925/2003, p. 383). See also Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, pp. 94, 106).
BERGWIK 661

to fully map the “intricate mountain land,” Hedin's ambition would be “satisfied if I succeed in making the first
reconnaissance.”117

7 | T H E B O D I L Y H A R D S H I P OF OB S E R V A T I O N : A N E M O T I O N A L
E CO NO M Y O F E L E V A TI O N

A core feature in Hedin's elevated view was that the eye was privileged as a way to create geographical knowledge
and understand the landscape. The importance of vision formed the discourse on the unobstructed overview, but it
can also be deduced from his preoccupation with contrasting armchair geographers, stuck in European metropolitan
centers, with explorers in the field who discovered with their own eyes. Making a point of distancing himself from
stationary scholars—“geographical discoveries are seldom made at home”—Hedin declared that he worked through
“direct observation on the very spot.”118 The geographer emphasized his efforts to see Tibet and Transhimalaya with
his “own eyes.”119 Scholarship on the history of geography has pointed to the fact that it was a visual science. Geog-
raphers used metaphors and techniques to capture what the eye could experience in the field. Influential scholars
like Halford Mackinder and Jean Brunhes argued that geography was a special form of visualization.120 More
broadly, the elevated view produced by Hedin repeated a rich 19th-century discourse on connections between
vision, rationality, and objectivity. Scientists in different 19th-century contexts contributed to descriptions of sight
as a basis for scientific knowledge, while other senses were linked to “gut, feeling, intuition, and non-verifiable, sub-
jective emotions.”121
Hedin's demarcation between armchair geographers and explorers in the field can be dismissed as rhetoric
designed to bolster his self-image and public credibility. But it also repeated widely held notions about geography.
The ideal of the explorer making observations in remote locations had been promulgated throughout the 19th cen-
tury.122 Moreover, the demarcation was part of Hedin's descriptions of his bodily sensations while mapping Tran-
shimalaya. Indeed, in portraying the bodily hardships of observations, Hedin produced an emotional economy of
elevation.
A basic ambition of studies in the history of emotion is to reconstruct the “emotional vocabulary of past socie-
ties.”123 While “society” seems too vague and all-encompassing a term for my purposes, the basic idea is valid: Hedin
shaped a vocabulary in which the rational eye was put in a productive relationship with bodily sensations. This
vocabulary found purchase both among geographic scholars and in settings where his texts, lectures, and appear-
ances were made public. This is indicated by the fact that the emotional vocabulary resurfaces both in Southern Tibet
and Trans-Himalaya.
Put differently, the elevated gaze promised rational geographical knowledge, yet it was also marked by bodily
ordeals of observation. The combination of rational seeing and corporal sensations turned it into a multimodal expe-
rience. In fact, at several junctures, it was precisely the production of data that generated the corporeal sensations of
the explorer. Commentators on Hedin's journeys have pointed out how his maps and panoramas were created at
heights surpassing 5,000 m, “where the thin air made the heart pound.”124 In both Southern Tibet and Trans-
Himalaya, Hedin himself emphasized that the “great rarefaction of the air” was a repeated concern.125 In the elevated
places from which he observed, it was hard to walk quickly since “the heart beats as if it would burst.”126 The

117
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 35).
118
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 2, pp. 226, 252).
119
Hedin (1909a, p. 400).
120
Driver (2003, p. 227).
121
Smith (2007, p. 25); Classen (2014, p. 17).
122
Driver (2004, p. 81); Robic (2013, p. 163).
123
Nagy (2019, pp. 197–198).
124
Selander (1953, p. 8).
125
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 4, p. 69).
126
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 3, p. 31).
662 BERGWIK

“enormous absolute altitude” forced Hedin to make short marches every day.127 At certain passes in the Karakoram
chain, it was “the absolute height that kills.”128
Moreover, Hedin described how his mapping activities were performed in a “chorus of storms”—when the “wind
howls and moans in my ears.”129 Gusting winds “made mapping and taking bearings extremely difficult.”130
According to Hedin's renditions, he occasionally had to shelter himself as he “read the instruments.”131 Moreover, he
emphasized the challenges of the cold climate, and frequently described his frozen hands and instruments. The
extreme cold presented challenges to sketching panoramas of the surroundings or jotting down observations:
“Before I have taken my observation and looked at the watch my left hand is dead.”132
Bodily tribulations and the problem of controlling the potentially distorted senses had been discussed by trav-
elers to Himalaya since the early 19th century. Felix Driver has argued that the “proper conduct of observation …
required training not only of the eyes, but also of the hands, the feet, and indeed of the whole body of the
observer.”133 In the rhetoric that shaped Sven Hedin's presentation of elevated views, the emotional distress of low
temperatures, strong winds, and thin air added to his ability to create an overview of the remote landscape. It was
because he traveled to places where he had an uninterrupted view that he experienced the frozen hands and the
pounding heart. Indeed, according to his rhetoric, Hedin was forced to experience these bodily tribulations because
he sought out elevated viewpoints in a manner that transcended what had been done in the area before. His travel
narrative added to the tendency in geography to highlight the challenges of travel in order to strengthen the field as
a persuasive form of scholarly undertaking. Like mountaineers in the 19th century, Hedin sought a particular status
and prestige because he had reached the ends of the earth and experienced the distress caused by extraordinary
surroundings.134
The bodily sensations were allowed to co-exist with the unobstructed overview. High places offered profound
challenges to rational visibility. Mapping them meant balancing a direct interaction with a place with the ability to
contemplate it from a distance.135 The same balance marked the travel and mapping done by Sven Hedin. While the
overview, in both its literary and practical meaning, created the ability to experience the landscape at a distance in
order to understand it clearly, the emotional sentiments emerged from the close encounter with the terrain. In his
hagiographic biography of Hedin, Eric Wennerholm adds to the discourse on the geographer's self-depictions. In
Tibet, he was “placed outside of himself, observing scientifically,” while at the same time “his shivering body” was
“intensely present.”136

8 | V E R T I G O A N D T H E EL E V A T E D V I E W

Although Hedin described the emotions connected to observation as intellectually productive in his travel narrative,
he also described how the emotional economy of elevation contained sensory experiences that threatened to
impede or blur the overview. These sensations were generated in the local context of elevation and looking at the
landscape from above. In particular, Hedin discursively emphasized vertigo, dizziness, and the feeling of being freed
from one's own body. Tibet was a country of “dizzying heights.”137 The Swede found himself in places where he was

127
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 4, p. 106).
128
Hedin (1909c, p. 373).
129
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, pp. 36, 40).
130
Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 4, p. 83).
131
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 3, pp. 4, 31).
132
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 1, p. 274). For more examples, see Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 1, p. 150; Vol. 2, pp. 19, 35, 255, 262, 263; Vol. 3, p. 44).
133
Driver (2004, p. 85).
134
Cosgrove & Della Dora (2009, pp. 8–11).
135
Cosgrove & Della Dora (2009, pp. 8–11).
136
Wennerholm (1978, p. 108).
137
Hedin (1925/2003, p. 448).
BERGWIK 663

“overwhelmed” by a “grand beauty” which spoke powerfully “to the senses.”138 Arresting scenery seized the body of
the geographer in a literal way: snowy peaks offered a sight that “strikes us dumb.” From the top of the Chang-lung-
yogma pass, Hedin described a panorama “so fascinating that we almost forget to dismount.”139 Such places pro-
duced experiences beyond language; they had a profound impact on the body of the geographer, who became
“amazed, and felt my heart beat more strongly than usual.” Indeed, at the saddle of some passes “one can scarcely
restrain an exclamation of astonishment and admiration.” Scenes like this offered “memorable tableaus” of Tibet.140
From the passes of Transhimalaya, normal experiences were canceled as points of orientation disappeared, leav-
ing the geographer bewildered. From above, “it looked as if solid ground had come to an end, fathomless space
yawning below and before us.”141 The “dizzy” observer “feels like the earth has grown, assuming more mighty pro-
portions than before.”142 Hedin claimed that at particular places, he found himself grabbing for support. During such
experiences, he found himself “the victim of an illusion”: he “took the border of the mountains” for “a belt of light
clouds” and the surface of a lake “for part of the sky.” He “wondered whether it was a fit of giddiness.”143 Moreover,
the experience of dramatic environs from up high challenged his efforts to set the landscape down on paper and cre-
ate the necessary overview. He “stood several hours” making “a hopeless attempt to sketch the landscape, but
succeeded in producing only a feeble imitation of the reality.”144 In May 1908, on the Angden-La mountain pass in
Tibet, at a height of 5,643 m, Hedin told his readers that the “ocean of mountains” surrounding him resisted descrip-
tion because it was too hard to capture in words, “it has to be experienced.”145
The fact that experiences of vertigo, dizziness, and a bewildering landscape at times inhibited observations and
displaced the ability to describe seems to be in a potentially contradictory relationship to the pursuit of scholarly
activities connected to the unobstructed overview. How was it possible to perform scientific observations while the
observer was struck dumb and nailed to the back of the horse?
The affective sensations of vertigo and of being unable to fathom the environs were continuously integrated
with the claim of being able to rationally understand the observed. Hedin stated that “words fail to describe the
landscapes of overwhelming grandeur which our eyes encountered everywhere.”146 "Nevertheless, he also used
mountain passes rising above the surroundings 'to reconnoiter'." The view from “this point was far too striking to
be sought merely for the purpose of orientation.”147 Tensions between mapping and the inability to apprehend
the landscape were repeatedly played out in Hedin's writing. “No words can describe the panorama around us,”
yet the same position offered productive sights, as Hedin saw “clearer and sharper than before.” The view that
made him dizzy coexisted with the rational gaze. From the Abuk-La pass, the Swedish geographer experienced “a
view both magnificent and instructive.”148 Although the scenery induced vertigo, the height also offered sharply
drawn outlines of the horizon. Moreover, underneath the striking beauty and spectacular nature of the scenery,
the forces of nature were at play, and they could only be accessed through a rational understanding of the
experiences.149
The limits of the senses, their extension through instruments, or the disciplining of them had been consid-
ered in discussions on knowledge production in the mountains since the early 19th century.150 As pointed out
by Lachlan Fleetwood, among explorers in Himalaya, the senses were “on trial” and had to be made trustwor-
thy. The fact that the explorer saw further from high altitudes challenged the understanding of scales and

138
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 381).
139
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 1, p. 278).
140
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, pp. 148, 380, 381).
141
Hedin (1925/2003, p. 264).
142
Hedin (1980, p. 174). See also Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 1, p. 278).
143
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 148).
144
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, p. 381).
145
Hedin (1980, p. 174).
146
Hedin (1925/2003, p. 447).
147
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 1, p. 85).
148
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, pp. 35, 396).
149
Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 1, p. 85).
150
Fleetwood (2018, p. 10).
664 BERGWIK

distances. The body of the climber, together with instruments and inscriptions, formed an unstable and con-
tested complex.151
However, the issue of disciplining the unstable senses was not discussed in Southern Tibet and Trans-Himalaya.
Instead, Hedin shaped an emotional economy of elevation in which the senses were integrated and made productive.
In forming this narrative, Hedin tapped into two discourses related to high altitude. First, he repeated the Hum-
boldtian tradition created at the turn of the 18th century. Key to this tradition was the merging of aesthetic judg-
ment and rational analysis, of sensibility and precise measurements.152 Romantic ideas about the sublime, which
became part of the Humboldtian tradition, also described the admiration and shock emanating from facing nature's
grandness. Moreover, it was etymologically connected to height, vertigo, and bodily affects, as well as to finding an
excess of sensory expressions that the mind could not fathom.153 In Humboldt's work, the “sensuous and the objec-
tive existed side by side, sometimes in a single sentence.”154 In several instances, the Swedish geographer tied his
descriptions to an idea of “the sublime grandeur” of Tibetan views.155
Second, the emotional economy of elevation that emerged in Hedin's travel narrative also resonated with the
late 19th-century discourse on elevation as attraction. In general, there was a growing attentiveness to geographical
knowledge, and an increasing appetite among the public for experiencing extreme spaces.156 Moreover, Himalaya
had attracted interest ever since the British started to map the area. For instance, Joseph Dalton Hooker's Himalayan
Journals from 1854 had been “brought home to an enthralled reading public.”157 Starting in the 1850s and 1860s,
European audiences were also served intriguing expositions and vertiginous experiences of climbing Mont Blanc.
Visual technologies and public spectacles turned the view from the mountaintop into a shared experience. The spec-
tator was emerged in, and simultaneously detached from, the landscape in the same way as the explorer or moun-
taineer who had been at the place itself.158
Even more specifically, the very experience of seeing the world from above was increasingly recreated in sci-
ence, art, and popular culture throughout the 19th century. At numerous public events, large crowds gawked at bal-
loons and towers, read journalistic reportages about aerial voyages, or strolled through exhibitions claiming to offer a
bird's-eye view. Cultural historians have given examples of media formats—including landscape scenes and moving
picture shows—that created a new sensibility of vision where the world was organized vertically.159 Fascination with
research results from high altitude increased as techniques to portray the world from above offered a world of won-
ders. For example, the globe as an image and symbol resurfaced in many places; throughout the 19th century, mass-
produced globes, atlases, and illustrated works were spread commercially and in schools.160 Moreover, ascents
became a widespread attraction, and views from above were continuously turned into “objects of exhibition.”161
Sven Hedin partook in the discourse on elevation as attraction when he communicated the view from above
through words and images to massive crowds. He intermittently referred to the reader of his travel narratives as a
“spectator” who consumed text and visual panoramas in combination.162 On returning to Stockholm in 1909, Hedin
was met at the docks by 5,000 people, and on one occasion during his preceding lecture tour, he spoke in front of
4,000 students at the Sorbonne (Figures 5 and 6).163
It was in this historically specific context that the emotional economy of elevation was shaped and disseminated
in relation to what it meant to perform expeditions to mountains. Precisely the same ambivalence between

151
Fleetwood (2018, pp. 4, 7–9).
152
Dettelbach (1999, p. 475).
153
Cosgrove & Della Dora (2009, p. 5).
154
Bunkse (1981, p. 137).
155
Hedin (1925/2003, p. 257). See also Hedin (1909–1913, Vol. 2, pp. 25, 28, 33).
156
Cosgrove (2001, pp. 225–229).
157
Isserman & Weaver (2010, p. 17).
158
Della Dora (2016, pp. 131–133).
159
Tucker (1996, pp. 145, 147, 149–150, 157); Ekström (2009, p. 185); Bigg (2007).
160
Cosgrove (2001, p. 225).
161
Tucker (1996, pp. 155, 165).
162
For example, see Hedin (1917–1922, Vol. 4, pp. 14, 21, 28–29).
163
Wennerholm (1978, pp. 156–157).
BERGWIK 665

F I G U R E 5 People at the docks in Stockholm welcoming Sven Hedin in January 1909. From Hvar 8 dag, 10(17),
1909. Reproduction by the National Library of Sweden (Kungliga biblioteket) [Color figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

F I G U R E 6 Sven Hedin on his way to

Manchester University 13 February 1909.
Photographer unknown. Sven Hedin private
family album, vol. 1. Sven Hedin photo
archive, Stockholm. Reprinted with
permission from the Sven Hedin Foundation

rationality and emotionality that Hedin described appeared in reports about seeing from balloons or from the Eiffel
Tower. As summarized by Anders Ekström, “On the one hand, elevation was described as a highly physical experi-
ence, involving feelings of dizziness, fear and sensory euphoria. On the other hand, elevation was associated with a
detached and disembodied way of seeing.”164
In discussing the “moral economy of science,” Lorraine Daston defines it as a “web of affect-saturated values”
that function in relation to each other. Moreover, Daston argues that “economy” has nothing to do with money and
markets, but rather indicates “an organized system that displays certain regularities,” which are “explicable but not
always predictable in their detail.”165 In that sense, it resembles Paul White's idea of an emotional economy as a “sys-
tem of powers and values” connected to emotions. The emotional economy of elevation meant that certain emo-
tional states functioned with each other. Moreover, these emotions were part of turning the elevated view from an

164
Ekström (2009, p. 187).
165
Daston (1995, p. 4).
666 BERGWIK

individual to a collective experience, since they were intelligible and capable of being disseminated in the public set-
tings where Hedin was continuously present.
Therefore, a further point on the emotional economy of elevation deserves to be made. It seems to me that the
sociological interpretation of “economy” (a socially produced system) that underpins Daston's and White's respective
arguments, while analytically productive, threatens to neglect the financial side of the matter. Sven Hedin's travels
and the late 19th-century popular culture of elevated views were also about money and markets. Verticality and the
expanded visual field were produced and thrived in settings marked by a new consumer culture. The links between
commercial interests and media like journals, world exhibitions, panoramas, or balloon flights ran deep. Correspond-
ingly, Sven Hedin was an entrepreneur who worked hard to collect the money he needed for his travels. Moreover,
he ran his activities like a business, selling books, articles, and lectures with a keen eye on the prize. For example, his
sister Alma stayed in Sweden to administer his writings, sending repeated offers to newspapers and others who
could pay to print the latest engaging story from Tibet. The emotional economy of elevation was, to put it more
bluntly, also a way to sell the view from above.

9 | C O N CL U S I O N

Transformations in geographical research at the turn of the 20th century enabled Sven Hedin in his drive to find ver-
tical viewpoints and his ambition to map what he considered the last white spots on the map. He emphasized the
importance of an unobstructed overview for understanding of the landscape, since the overview assembled details
into a complete vision and gave form to a formless place. This, in turn, meant that, while describing the experience of
losing points of observations, Hedin underscored vision and its potential to carry knowledge-making weight. The
idea resonated with a widely held notion in geography—and more broadly in discourses on knowledge-making—
about the premier importance of the sense of sight. The elevated view activated vision as the foundation to mapping,
finding orographic features, and understanding increasingly large sections of Transhimalaya. Moreover, I have indi-
cated the deep-seated connections between the overview and the imperial logic of Hedin's worldview.
Furthermore, I have used the idea of an emotional economy of elevation to indicate how the ostensibly rational
overview coexisted with embodied experiences of extreme nature. While Paul White's discussion of an emotional
economy of science is not directed towards elevation, it serves to indicate how a cluster of affective experiences
was played out against each other and made meaningful in particular contexts. The bulk of research in the history of
emotions has investigated the lineage or historical specificity of one emotion, such as pain or fear.166 Instead, draw-
ing on White's argument about an emotional economy of science, I have explored a mix of sensations and sentiments
connected to the intense environment in Tibet.
First, Hedin underscored the tribulations of the body connected to altitude. The scholarly quality of the elevated
view hinged upon the ability to endure the climate and collect data in the face of excruciating temperatures, storms,
and thin air. Second, vertigo, the experience of being freed from one's body, and losing points of observation were
integrated into Hedin's descriptions of the elevated view. The disciplining of the observer's experiences to serve
knowledge-making is a recurring theme in the long history of observation.167 Hedin was no exception, yet it is impor-
tant to note that even feelings that threatened to distort the observations were included and legitimized to describe
the particular quality of the elevated view. Experiences of vertigo, dizziness, and confusion produced by the extreme
environment were not banned from the rational gaze of the geographer, they were rather a prerequisite to under-
standing the landscape.
The emotional economy of elevation instantiated by Hedin was a “dynamic and interactive system,” to use
White's phrasing. It repeated and engaged with contexts stretching back in time and beyond the community of

166
Nagy (2019, p. 198).
167
Daston & Lunbeck (2011, pp. 2–3).
BERGWIK 667

contemporary European geographers. It was marked by the tradition from Alexander von Humboldt and ideas
about the sublime, with its roots in the late 18th century. However, I have also suggested the importance of a late
19th-century context of elevation as attraction, through which an expanded sensory field took shape.
Descriptions of the relationship between vertigo and the rational gaze were a crucial feature in discussions about
vertically elevated outlooks, and they were echoed in Hedin's depictions of what he experienced from Tibetan
mountain passes.
To underscore the point that the elevated view, and the emotional economy of elevation, attracted crowds into
the negotiations between dizziness and the unobstructed overview, I also wish to circle back to the character of
Hedin's books. Hedin's travel narrative should be understood as the place where he produced the elevated view and
presented it to peers, as well as to publics enthralled by the emotional sensations of the stunning landscape. A large
audience consumed his books; they were told about maps and orography, but also about the experiences of the ele-
vated view. Hedin's travel narrative was produced against, and intervened in, a discursive field of reflections on what
and how the observer experienced while seeing the world from above.

ACKNOWLEDGEMEN TS
This article is part of the larger research project “Elevated views: Sven Hedin's expeditions and the world from above
1900–1935,” financed by The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences (Riksbankens jubileumsfond),
project number P17-0596:1. I wish to thank Martin Mahony, Wilko Graf von Hardenberg, and the other contributors
to this special issue for their insightful comments on drafts. The two reviewers also contributed in productive ways
that strengthened the article. Thanks also to my colleagues at the research seminar for history of ideas at the Depart-
ment for Culture and Eesthetics, Stockholm University, for their critical help in developing earlier versions of the arti-
cle. Finally, thanks to Håkan Wahlquist at the Sven Hedin Foundation for his help with comments, literature, and
visual material.

ORCID
Staffan Bergwik https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5373-5145

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How to cite this article: Bergwik S. Elevation and emotion: Sven Hedin's mountain expedition to
Transhimalaya, 1906–1908. Centaurus. 2020;62:647–669. https://doi.org/10.1111/1600-0498.12298