Full Description
Dancing on the beach after a swim in the Mediterranean, taking the waters in fashionable Baden-Baden, boating on the Black Sea - the myriad uses of water imply that the term itself possesses multiple meanings. Focusing on Europe, this book addresses how using water for relaxation intersects with ideas about class, gender, nationality, and consumption. It also explores the ways Europeans have turned to water for pleasure, relaxation, and profit over the last two hundred years as the enjoyment of free time developed from a privilege into a right. Contributors capture key moments of social and cultural transition in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - moments during which new social distinctions emerged, debates about nationalism and cosmopolitanism flourished, concepts of hygiene became politicized, and attitudes about travel and vacationing developed.What kinds of relationships exist between recreational uses of water and cultural, social, or political practices? How have such relationships found representation in art, landscaping, or architecture?
Who visits water resorts or beaches and what role have these places played in the emergence of collective identities or in lending authority to social distinctions? How does the organization of leisure activities around water reflect ideas about purity and pollution, in a moral, social, or physical sense? This exciting venture into 'uncharted waters' will fascinate historians, geographers and anyone with a keen interest in European cultural studies, art and landscape.
Contents
Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Map of Europe 1 Introduction: The Pleasure of Taking the Waters Susan C. Anderson Collective Identities 2 Fashionable Spa Towns in Nineteenth-century Europe David Blackbourn 3 The Culture of the Water Cure in Nineteenth-century Austria, 1800@1914 Jill Steward 4 The Waters of San Sebastian: Therapy, Health, Pleasure and Identity, 1840@1936 John Walton 5 The Thrill of Frozen Water: Class, Gender and Ice-Skating in The Netherlands, 1600@1900 Jan Hein Furnee 6 The Finnish Sauna and Its Finnishness Pekka Leimu Aesthetics and Ideology 7 Seaside Visitors: Idlers, Thinkers and Patriots in Mid-nineteenth-century Britain Christiana Payne 8 A Sound Mind in a Sound Body: Bathing in Sweden Michelle Facos 9 The Ideological, Aesthetic and Ecological Significance of Water in Twentieth-century German Garden Design Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn 10 The Thermenpalast (Thermal Palace): An Outstanding German Water-leisure Project from the 1920s Gert Groning and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn 11 Hungarian Spas Teresa Switzer Ecology and Economics 12 Water Recreation Resources and Environmental Pressures along Bulgaria's Black Sea Coast Vassil Marinov and Boian Koulov 13 Water and Leisure in Moldova: A Social Perspective Maria Vodenska 14 Water, Culture and Leisure: From Spas to Beach Tourism in Greece during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Margarita Dritsas 15 Rimini and Costa Smeralda: How Social Values Shape Recreational Sites Patrizia Battilani 16 Vacationing on France's Cote d'Azur, 1950@2000 Andre Rauch Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index
