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The Beach
Turquoise water, pillowy sand, and a warm, salty breeze -- today the beach is regarded as the best possible place to restore body and soul. However, this has not always been the case. In other centuries the beach was considered a remote, terrifying wasteland on the margins of civilization. In their entertaining, elegant, and illuminating account, Lena Lencek and Gideon Bosker trace the four-billion-year evolution of the place where land, water, and humans meet.
Embedded in the narrative are the histories of sexuality, health, fashion, sport, the rise of the great resorts -- St. Tropez, Catalina, Newport, Miami Beach -- and the beach tales of Columbus, D-Day troops, and castaways Cook, Melville, and Swinburne. Including a marvelous selection of images evoking the beach's hypnotic appeal -- Impressionist paintings, archival photographs, advertising art, and postcards -- and an Appendix of the world's most beautiful, unspoiled beaches, The Beach will fascinate any reader from Coney
- GenresHistoryNonfictionNature
Audiobook
First published June 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 18, 2019
Could have used a good editor. Seemed to hop all over the place.
April 16, 2022
For a topic as pleasurable as the beach and one that the authors clearly lose, this is a pretty tedious book. The co-authors are professors, and the writing feels like it. I was waiting for a quiz at the end: When was the first seaside hotel built in Southampton? What were canopies over bathing houses called? Was the beach at Nice shingled, sand, rocks, or something else?
Sometimes, trivial fact upon fact was piled up, as evidence of the authors' investigations. But who cares about hearing over and over that a particular beach had bathing houses that were pulled into the sea by horses? Hearing about it in general is enough.
On the positive side, the book does a good job of showing the evolution of human attitudes about the beach, or at least what they define as "the beach" as our current vacation destination. They explain that humans gravitated towards the shoreline late in prehistory, as it provided access to fish and river deltas with productive soil. Romans and Greeks loved the beach as well, and it's built into their mythology as well as their construction usually overlooking the shore rather than on it. But then Christians shunned beaches -- these authors claim due to the Bible's description of the flood, as well as the general vulnerability of people off land. This began to turn in the 16th century and took real force by the 18th century, as the beach was seen as a place to regain health, which later morphed into a place of pleasure.
All this is nicely documented with quotes from various famous people and quotations from texts of the time by physicians. I found it interesting that the reason the beach was considered healthy changed over time. At one point it was cold water, which stimulated organs. At another, it was air breezes (coming only from certain directions). At another, it was the sun. At others, it was the view.
The discussion of beachwear was interesting, too, from the nudity in the US and Europe (especially Europe) up until the mid-19th century to the ridiculously restrictive costumes after that for more than 50 years, and then the evolution that led to the smaller and smaller bikini post-1946.
But while the information is good, the presentation in this book is weak. There's a lot of lame humorous references which look especially bad in a post-Me Too world. Strange that one of the authors is a woman who's apparently okay with the sexism and (more or less) violence against women at the shore for hundreds of years. The book repeatedly references "women of easy virtue" and phrases like that about prostitutes who surely didn't want to spend their days eking out a miserable existence for wealthy men's pleasure. And it only has positive quotes from US women of the 1950s about the padded bras and other form-enhancing or form-revealing suits that men dictated as the new fashion.
In fact overall, there's this gee-wiz attitude in this book that the beach is an escape, a place where new rules apply, and that this is an unalloyed great thing. Maybe it's great for some people. It's not for everyone. And it never was. There's no harm in a book being fun, and that's what this book attempts to do. But because these authors lack the light touch of, say, Bill Bryson, they can't carry it off. They'd have been better served by being more serious and giving deeper treatment to the topic.
Sometimes, trivial fact upon fact was piled up, as evidence of the authors' investigations. But who cares about hearing over and over that a particular beach had bathing houses that were pulled into the sea by horses? Hearing about it in general is enough.
On the positive side, the book does a good job of showing the evolution of human attitudes about the beach, or at least what they define as "the beach" as our current vacation destination. They explain that humans gravitated towards the shoreline late in prehistory, as it provided access to fish and river deltas with productive soil. Romans and Greeks loved the beach as well, and it's built into their mythology as well as their construction usually overlooking the shore rather than on it. But then Christians shunned beaches -- these authors claim due to the Bible's description of the flood, as well as the general vulnerability of people off land. This began to turn in the 16th century and took real force by the 18th century, as the beach was seen as a place to regain health, which later morphed into a place of pleasure.
All this is nicely documented with quotes from various famous people and quotations from texts of the time by physicians. I found it interesting that the reason the beach was considered healthy changed over time. At one point it was cold water, which stimulated organs. At another, it was air breezes (coming only from certain directions). At another, it was the sun. At others, it was the view.
The discussion of beachwear was interesting, too, from the nudity in the US and Europe (especially Europe) up until the mid-19th century to the ridiculously restrictive costumes after that for more than 50 years, and then the evolution that led to the smaller and smaller bikini post-1946.
But while the information is good, the presentation in this book is weak. There's a lot of lame humorous references which look especially bad in a post-Me Too world. Strange that one of the authors is a woman who's apparently okay with the sexism and (more or less) violence against women at the shore for hundreds of years. The book repeatedly references "women of easy virtue" and phrases like that about prostitutes who surely didn't want to spend their days eking out a miserable existence for wealthy men's pleasure. And it only has positive quotes from US women of the 1950s about the padded bras and other form-enhancing or form-revealing suits that men dictated as the new fashion.
In fact overall, there's this gee-wiz attitude in this book that the beach is an escape, a place where new rules apply, and that this is an unalloyed great thing. Maybe it's great for some people. It's not for everyone. And it never was. There's no harm in a book being fun, and that's what this book attempts to do. But because these authors lack the light touch of, say, Bill Bryson, they can't carry it off. They'd have been better served by being more serious and giving deeper treatment to the topic.
October 7, 2023
I really wanted to love this book. So much of the information was entertaining and enlightening, as well as topical despite it’s publication date of 1998, but the writing was not necessarily enjoyable. Maybe having two authors created a disconnect or maybe I felt some sections flowed while others felt stilted and unnaturally complicated with overly descriptive wording.
The endless small sections with subtitles seemed artificial, unnecessary, and odd, as if they had valuable information but were unsure how or where to include topics so inserted them haphazardly.
It reminded me of a novel with separate chapters for individual characters as if the author was unable to weave a continuous storyline.
I loved the cover and idea of the book but found the execution wanting.
And lastly sometimes the photos had little connection to the page on which they were published so would have been better included in a center section instead.
I have no desire to read any other books by these joint authors sadly.
The endless small sections with subtitles seemed artificial, unnecessary, and odd, as if they had valuable information but were unsure how or where to include topics so inserted them haphazardly.
It reminded me of a novel with separate chapters for individual characters as if the author was unable to weave a continuous storyline.
I loved the cover and idea of the book but found the execution wanting.
And lastly sometimes the photos had little connection to the page on which they were published so would have been better included in a center section instead.
I have no desire to read any other books by these joint authors sadly.
Want to read
June 19, 2011had to pick this up at a cute little book store when we were just on vacation in ocean shores! how could i not when i was actually at the beach? the reviews don't sound great but who cares for under $3!
February 14, 2021
An engaging study on beaches and the evolving ways in which humans have interacted with them. A good chunk of this book has to do with the history of swimwear, and while I was hoping the book would be more focused on geology I did get sucked in to the fascinating fashion eras. I enjoyed it even though it wasn't exactly the book I was expecting. One major pet peeve: at least 3 times during the book the author uses the phrase "spot welded" in situations that have absolutely nothing to do with welding. I found this jarring and odd to repeat such an obscure phrase 3 times totally out of context.
January 12, 2012
Strong overall cultural history of the seashore - massive in scope, so not tremendous detail at any one point. Enjoyed especially the coverage of the seashore in antiquity and also some lesser-known chapters in beach history. Lencek didn't go much into the working classes and their pretty steady use of the oceans, as this is mostly a history of how the middle and upper classes related to shoreside environments, and she also didn't get into issues of segregation and beach access and the development of resorts specific to certain religions and races. But it was a good sweeping look at the construction of the beach as an environment with particular purposes suited to their times.
September 3, 2014
This book provided a lot of interesting facts about a number of popular beach towns, as well as the sociological changes which occurred to change the perception of the shoreline from something terrifying to a healthful retreat and eventually to a vast money-making resource for a few aggressive developers.
February 15, 2011
There were quite a few inconsistencies and scientific errors in the book, but I still enjoyed it. I think the book's intent was to focus on people and their perceptions, rather than scientific facts.
May 17, 2011
really i probably shouldn't put this on my "read" shelf because i did not finish it; it was tooooo boring! but i DID read EIGHTY-EIGHT pages before i quit, so, . . . . . . i am putting it as "read." i feel like just because i plodded through EIGHTY-EIGHT pages of BOREDOM i get to do that! : ~
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews