New Zealand spoils you for choices, but is best explored on foot by Paula Ray Mountaineer twins Tashi and Nungshi Malik give expert advice on trekking in New Zealand, and beyond in Share Image: Stuart Black / Robertharding/ Corbis The Routeburn Track going through Mount Aspiring National Park in the South Island T here are lands that are meant to be explored on your feet. New Zealand is one of them. With an immensely diverse topography, it can spoil you for choice. Whether it is one of the Great Walks, an epic multi-trek around the country, or just a walk around the scenic countryside, there is something for anyone who loves the outdoors. It is no surprise then that Tashi and Nungshi Malik, the 24-year-olds from Dehradun who made history last December by being the first siblings and twins to scale the Seven Summits—the highest peaks ...

Al fred Kroeber’s 1944 book, Configurations of Culture Growth, is a masterpiece in the field of anthropology. He was a 68-year-old professor at the University of California in Berkeley when his 882-page book came out. Youth favours mathematicians and mobile phone app writers but not anthropologists. They have no way of bypassing the decades of reading and research and deep synthesis it takes to become good in their field. And so what did the great Kroeber conclude after all his work? First, that individual geniuses in the arts and sciences tend to rise from advancing cultures, not declining ones. The peak period of a culture is signalled by a spike in genius contributors in the sciences and the arts . (We could add technology.) The best Greek tragedies and comedies were written within a 100-year period when ancient Greece was at its peak. The peak in Germany’s music culture lasted less than 200 years. Of longer duration was England’s peak creative period in science and ...