Add to ORKGSince the dawn of time, mountains have demonstrated a willingness to innovate“, states a recent prospectus of the Laboratory of Excellence ITEM in Grenoble. The present lecture tries to give a feedback to that statement on the basis of an emerging global history of the mountains. It starts out with the question how research on the past can sharpen our sense for future developments. The second section concerns the global and ecological turns in mountain perception during the so called Rio-process since the 1990s (UN Agenda 21 with a mountain chapter). The third section broadens that perspective and touches upon various religious impulses in non-western attitudes to upland areas. All in all, these voices on mountain issues sum up to a bewilde...