Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time

About the book

'here we drink three cups of tea to do business; the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything - even die.'

Haji ali, korphe village chief, karakoram mountains, pakistan

In 1993, after a terrifying and disastrous attempt to climb k2, a mountaineer called greg mortenson drifted, cold and dehydrated, into an impoverished pakistan village in the karakoram mountains. Moved by the inhabitants' kindness, he promised to return and build a school. Three cups of tea is the story of that promise and its extraordinary outcome.

Over the next decade mortenson built not just one but fifty-five schools - especially for girls - in remote villages across the forbidding and breathtaking landscape of pakistan and afghanistan, just as the taliban rose to power. His story is at once a riveting adventure and a testament to the power of the humanitarian spirit.