One day in 1993, an exhausted mountain climber stumbled from the slopes of the treacherous peak known as K2 into an isolated Pakistani village. The impoverished villagers sheltered and fed him until he was well enough to move on. When he learned they had no school for their children, he vowed to return and build them one. In the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan, war and poverty have limited education for all, while custom and prejudice have denied education to women altogether. With no other means to escape a life of crushing poverty, many young people become recruits for the Taliban or Al Qaeda. Unfazed by the immensity of the problem, Greg Mortenson founded the Central Asia Institute to promote education and literacy, especially for girls, in this remote and volatile region.

Fundamentalist mullahs, unwilling to see Muslim children taught by outsiders they regard as infidels, issued religious edicts -- fatwas -- to put a stop to Mortenson's project. On one mission, he was kidnapped and held hostage for eight days. On another, he escaped the crossfire of feuding warlords by hiding for eight hours under a heap of stinking animal hides, in a truck bound for the tannery. His efforts have often been misunderstood by his own countrymen as well. The CIA has investigated his operations, and he has received hate mail and even death threats from misinformed Americans who resent his efforts to educate Muslim children. Undeterred, he has now founded more than 60 schools, providing educational opportunities to over 25,000 children, more than half of them girls who might otherwise have received no education at all.

The Minnesota-born Mortenson was raised by his missionary parents on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. He served in the army for 12 years before embarking on the series of mountain-climbing expeditions that led him to Pakistan and his life's calling. He has related the story of his adventurous life and his humanitarian vision in the gripping memoir Three Cups of Tea, still number one after more than a year on The New York Times bestseller list. By showing the youth of Central Asia the way to a better life, Greg Mortenson has proved that in the war on terror, education is the most powerful weapon of all.