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The Lure of the Beach: A Global History
A human and global take on a beloved vacation spot. The crash of surf, smell of salted air, wet whorls of sand underfoot. These are the sensations of the beach, that environment that has drawn humans to its life-sustaining shores for millennia. And while the gull’s cry and the cove’s splendor have remained constant throughout time, our relationship with the beach has been as fluid as the runnels left behind by the tide’s turning.
The Lure of the Beach is a chronicle of humanity's history with the coast, taking us from the seaside pleasure palaces of Roman elites and the aquatic rituals of medieval pilgrims, to the venues of modern resort towns and beyond. Robert C. Ritchie traces the contours of the material and social economies of the beach throughout time, covering changes in the social status of beach goers, the technology of transport, and the development of fashion (from nudity to Victorianism and back again), as well as the geographic spread of modern beach-going from England to France, across the Mediterranean, and from nineteenth-century America to the world. And as climate change and rising sea levels erode the familiar faces of our coasts, we are poised for a contemporary reckoning with our relationship—and responsibilities—to our beaches and their ecosystems. The Lure of the Beach demonstrates that whether as a commodified pastoral destination, a site of ecological resplendency, or a flashpoint between private ownership and public access, the history of the beach is a human one that deserves to be told now more than ever before.
The Lure of the Beach is a chronicle of humanity's history with the coast, taking us from the seaside pleasure palaces of Roman elites and the aquatic rituals of medieval pilgrims, to the venues of modern resort towns and beyond. Robert C. Ritchie traces the contours of the material and social economies of the beach throughout time, covering changes in the social status of beach goers, the technology of transport, and the development of fashion (from nudity to Victorianism and back again), as well as the geographic spread of modern beach-going from England to France, across the Mediterranean, and from nineteenth-century America to the world. And as climate change and rising sea levels erode the familiar faces of our coasts, we are poised for a contemporary reckoning with our relationship—and responsibilities—to our beaches and their ecosystems. The Lure of the Beach demonstrates that whether as a commodified pastoral destination, a site of ecological resplendency, or a flashpoint between private ownership and public access, the history of the beach is a human one that deserves to be told now more than ever before.
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525 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 11, 2021
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September 16, 2021
I live near and visit California’s beautiful beaches in Santa Cruz daily. It’s become both a privilege and a routine, something my everyday life thrives and depends on (my dog’s as well). That’s what attracted me to this book — something that would help me understand how beaches got to be beaches, in the sense of the place they occupy in our culture and psyche, and in mine in particular.
You might think this would be a beach-read. It isn’t. It’s a fairly academic book, written as cultural history, with lots of facts and even personal accounts drawn from personal letters, journalism, and other historical sources.
But it does tell a compelling story. Beaches weren’t always places for recreation, leisure, and the calm mind of the vacationer. The story that Ritchie tells is of economic, social, and technological changes that enabled the evolution of the “beach.”
Beach-going began to take off in the 18th century. If you think about it, beach-going is a leisure activity and so couldn’t take off until an economic class with leisure time emerged, as well as reliable and comfortable transportation to beach areas and accommodations once there. So, even the beach destinations that emerged were far from what we think of as popular beaches today.
In those early days, beaches and the salt water were valued as cures for all sorts of ailments and conditions — skin ailments, cancers, rabies, . . . Immersion in salt water, repeated dips in cold ocean waters, even drinking salt water were part of the “thalassotherapy” menu and continue to be so now for some.
The moral climate had to evolve as well, before beach-going could become a leisure activity. The Protestant work ethic discouraged leisure altogether, the workweek extended to every day but Sunday, and Sunday was a day for church. But it seems as though the tides carrying the higher economic class were too strong for such qualms, and it was that class who made the first moves in beach-going.
The resistance to the inevitable baring of bodies was a barrier that had to fall, too. In Britain and Europe “bathing machines” shielded women from prying and unprying eyes as they were mechanically “dipped” into the salt water. Mens’ beaches were segregated so that mens’ bodies wouldn’t be on display to the probably-not-actually-naive ladies.
Bathing machines lasted well into and through the 1800s, to transport women, especially, across the sand to the water without having to expose themselves in their swim clothing (which covered them almost head to toe anyway, in loose flannel or wool).
The wealthier classes were then the “pioneers” of beach-going. They didn’t have it tough, given servants, bathing machines, etc., but beaches were not yet a place for long sunny afternoons. You had to get there, and you had to follow the rules.
Gradually, as the workweek shortened, at first to five and a half days, and as the incomes of less wealthy classes improved, beaches began to populate across the economic classes. Vacations also became available to some, and afforded days-long stays at the coast.
The “weekend”, punctuating the five day work week, begin to emerge in the late 19th century, freeing up a much larger population to visit their local beaches, although the beaches were still a place for “dips” more than for anything comparable to what we do now.
Altogether, a number of technological, social, and economic conditions had had to be fulfilled before beaches could even begin to evolve into what we have today.
- Economic democracy and working conditions had to evolve to favor an appreciable swath of the population
- Roads or railroads had to be built to reach what otherwise would have been relatively remote fishing villages
- Social and moral standards had to allow for some acceptance of leisure and of clothing appropriate for the beach and ocean
Electrification brought an explosive expansion to beach recreation. Amusement parks and other recreational facilities that depended on electrical power made beaches extended destinations, with activities suited to just about anyone. With actual ocean-swimming still relatively rare and sunbathing not yet practical (because of body-covering clothing as well as an attitude disfavoring the healthiness of sun exposure), those amusement rides and attractions began to fill out the day for beach-goers.
Roller coasters first began to appear at beaches in 1884, and the first Ferris wheel made its debut in the 1890s at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition.
Modern swimsuits, revealing more skin and shape, were partly enabled by changing attitudes toward the healthiness of exposure to the sun and tanning.
Then, maybe as a final stage in the development of what we think of as the “beach” today, air travel enabled an explosion of mega beach resorts. “Local” beaches were no longer necessary — any beach anywhere in the world became reachable in principle, and the emergence of annual vacations as standard for middle classes now earning true middle class incomes in the post-war world of the 1950s meant that more and more people could get themselves to more and more beaches for longer and longer stays.
The confluence of relatively cheap air and ground transportation, roads, hotels, and annual vacations gave us something distinctive to modern beaches — a range of regional beach towns and resorts, and mega resort destinations far from home.
Still beach-going did not reach any sort of democratic ideal. Jews and African Americans were not welcome at many beaches. Beaches could be, and still are, reserved for chosen classes of people by legal, economic, or practical obstacles. Beach clubs, for example, charge exclusive membership fees and find less obvious ways to discriminate.
The wealthy and privileged, those “pioneers” of beach-going, still find their way to exclusivity. The methods and means just change.
The great majority of the story that Ritchie tells, despite the subtitle (“A Global History”), concerns western culture. Not until page 167 do we get the first mentions of beaches and beach life in Asia, at the turn of the 20th century. It would be interesting to know a little more about the earlier history of the beach in Japan, China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and India. To his credit, once he does begin discussing beaches in the Asian, as well as the Middle Eastern and African, worlds, Ritchie brings them into the fold, especially as many resort destinations appear there.
Finally, we can’t talk about the beach without talking about climate change. Our natural beaches are the products of geography and climate. As our climate changes, the beaches will change. increasingly powerful storms wash beaches away, redepositing sand elsewhere or simply submerging them.
Rising sea level inundates coastal properties — beach resorts are not exempt. Barrier islands are inundated, leaving coastal areas even less protected from storms. And those resorts on idyllic Caribbean or Pacific islands will likely find themselves underwater, and even before that, without adequate access to fresh water as rivers and streams are claimed by saltwater environments.
Many beach communities fight an ultimately futile battle, replenishing lost sand in a cycle of storms and repair that costs in the millions on each occasion, or building sea walls and barriers that only offer temporary protection and sometimes just redirect damage elsewhere.
Our romance with beach life is under threat without question and without a practical solution.
If you’re getting the impression that Ritchie’s story of the beach isn’t breezy, not, as I said in the beginning, a beach read, you’re right. My review isn't even breezy (sorry). This is economic, social, and technological history.
It’s interesting to me that that’s not what I was expecting. Ritchie, though, has convinced me that his story is valid — attitudes alone would not have evolved my beach experience. It took historical change in all its dimensions.
You might think this would be a beach-read. It isn’t. It’s a fairly academic book, written as cultural history, with lots of facts and even personal accounts drawn from personal letters, journalism, and other historical sources.
But it does tell a compelling story. Beaches weren’t always places for recreation, leisure, and the calm mind of the vacationer. The story that Ritchie tells is of economic, social, and technological changes that enabled the evolution of the “beach.”
Beach-going began to take off in the 18th century. If you think about it, beach-going is a leisure activity and so couldn’t take off until an economic class with leisure time emerged, as well as reliable and comfortable transportation to beach areas and accommodations once there. So, even the beach destinations that emerged were far from what we think of as popular beaches today.
In those early days, beaches and the salt water were valued as cures for all sorts of ailments and conditions — skin ailments, cancers, rabies, . . . Immersion in salt water, repeated dips in cold ocean waters, even drinking salt water were part of the “thalassotherapy” menu and continue to be so now for some.
The moral climate had to evolve as well, before beach-going could become a leisure activity. The Protestant work ethic discouraged leisure altogether, the workweek extended to every day but Sunday, and Sunday was a day for church. But it seems as though the tides carrying the higher economic class were too strong for such qualms, and it was that class who made the first moves in beach-going.
The resistance to the inevitable baring of bodies was a barrier that had to fall, too. In Britain and Europe “bathing machines” shielded women from prying and unprying eyes as they were mechanically “dipped” into the salt water. Mens’ beaches were segregated so that mens’ bodies wouldn’t be on display to the probably-not-actually-naive ladies.
Bathing machines lasted well into and through the 1800s, to transport women, especially, across the sand to the water without having to expose themselves in their swim clothing (which covered them almost head to toe anyway, in loose flannel or wool).
The wealthier classes were then the “pioneers” of beach-going. They didn’t have it tough, given servants, bathing machines, etc., but beaches were not yet a place for long sunny afternoons. You had to get there, and you had to follow the rules.
Gradually, as the workweek shortened, at first to five and a half days, and as the incomes of less wealthy classes improved, beaches began to populate across the economic classes. Vacations also became available to some, and afforded days-long stays at the coast.
The “weekend”, punctuating the five day work week, begin to emerge in the late 19th century, freeing up a much larger population to visit their local beaches, although the beaches were still a place for “dips” more than for anything comparable to what we do now.
Altogether, a number of technological, social, and economic conditions had had to be fulfilled before beaches could even begin to evolve into what we have today.
- Economic democracy and working conditions had to evolve to favor an appreciable swath of the population
- Roads or railroads had to be built to reach what otherwise would have been relatively remote fishing villages
- Social and moral standards had to allow for some acceptance of leisure and of clothing appropriate for the beach and ocean
Electrification brought an explosive expansion to beach recreation. Amusement parks and other recreational facilities that depended on electrical power made beaches extended destinations, with activities suited to just about anyone. With actual ocean-swimming still relatively rare and sunbathing not yet practical (because of body-covering clothing as well as an attitude disfavoring the healthiness of sun exposure), those amusement rides and attractions began to fill out the day for beach-goers.
Roller coasters first began to appear at beaches in 1884, and the first Ferris wheel made its debut in the 1890s at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition.
Modern swimsuits, revealing more skin and shape, were partly enabled by changing attitudes toward the healthiness of exposure to the sun and tanning.
Then, maybe as a final stage in the development of what we think of as the “beach” today, air travel enabled an explosion of mega beach resorts. “Local” beaches were no longer necessary — any beach anywhere in the world became reachable in principle, and the emergence of annual vacations as standard for middle classes now earning true middle class incomes in the post-war world of the 1950s meant that more and more people could get themselves to more and more beaches for longer and longer stays.
The confluence of relatively cheap air and ground transportation, roads, hotels, and annual vacations gave us something distinctive to modern beaches — a range of regional beach towns and resorts, and mega resort destinations far from home.
Still beach-going did not reach any sort of democratic ideal. Jews and African Americans were not welcome at many beaches. Beaches could be, and still are, reserved for chosen classes of people by legal, economic, or practical obstacles. Beach clubs, for example, charge exclusive membership fees and find less obvious ways to discriminate.
The wealthy and privileged, those “pioneers” of beach-going, still find their way to exclusivity. The methods and means just change.
The great majority of the story that Ritchie tells, despite the subtitle (“A Global History”), concerns western culture. Not until page 167 do we get the first mentions of beaches and beach life in Asia, at the turn of the 20th century. It would be interesting to know a little more about the earlier history of the beach in Japan, China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and India. To his credit, once he does begin discussing beaches in the Asian, as well as the Middle Eastern and African, worlds, Ritchie brings them into the fold, especially as many resort destinations appear there.
Finally, we can’t talk about the beach without talking about climate change. Our natural beaches are the products of geography and climate. As our climate changes, the beaches will change. increasingly powerful storms wash beaches away, redepositing sand elsewhere or simply submerging them.
Rising sea level inundates coastal properties — beach resorts are not exempt. Barrier islands are inundated, leaving coastal areas even less protected from storms. And those resorts on idyllic Caribbean or Pacific islands will likely find themselves underwater, and even before that, without adequate access to fresh water as rivers and streams are claimed by saltwater environments.
Many beach communities fight an ultimately futile battle, replenishing lost sand in a cycle of storms and repair that costs in the millions on each occasion, or building sea walls and barriers that only offer temporary protection and sometimes just redirect damage elsewhere.
Our romance with beach life is under threat without question and without a practical solution.
If you’re getting the impression that Ritchie’s story of the beach isn’t breezy, not, as I said in the beginning, a beach read, you’re right. My review isn't even breezy (sorry). This is economic, social, and technological history.
It’s interesting to me that that’s not what I was expecting. Ritchie, though, has convinced me that his story is valid — attitudes alone would not have evolved my beach experience. It took historical change in all its dimensions.
May 22, 2021
Long summer afternoons on an endless spread of sand, lounging under an umbrella with a cool drink, women in bikinis, men in Speedos, the surf lapping at the wrack line, puffy cumuli floating in on the sea breeze--the beach is a stereotype we all carry around in our heads, even in the depth of winter, even if we've never gone to an actual beach.
But beach behavior is neither inherent nor fixed. Robert Ritchie cites some evidence--slim, it must be admitted--that our deep ancestors prowled and played on South African beaches hundreds of thousands of years ago, and he delves briefly into elite Roman beach life at Baiai, on the Bay of Naples--but his history of humans on the beach really begins in the Early Modern Period, as Europeans started heading to the beach for reasons of health. The ocean was scary--he quotes multiple witnesses who admit the fear they had to overcome to venture into the water. But equipped with baigneurs (assistants who dipped their clients in the waves) and "bathing machines" (movable huts to conceal the bather as she changed and proceeded to the water) and strong medical advice, people took to dipping themselves three times into ocean waters to revive a physiology depleted by city life.
When beach visits began men dipped naked. Walt Whitman caroused in the buff at Coney Island long before it became a byword for tacky amusements. Women faced the problem that exposing skin beyond face and hands was impermissible; inventive types developed coverings even more modest than the burkini to protect women bathers from the leers of watchful men (and other women). Male nudity came to be disapproved by the nineteenth century, and indeed male bathing costumes eventually covered the whole body from shoulders to knees; keeping the chest and nipples concealed was especially important.
As we all know, these sartorial conventions shifted over time; women's costumes shrank, men's too. till we ended up with the woman's tank, the two-piece, and the bikini, and for men Speedos and shorts. The driver toward less and less came with a turn in medical advice. Dropping the earlier view that salt water promoted health, doctors floated the notion that sunshine and the resulting tan were the health factors of the beach, and under the medical-sounding moniker of heliotherapy sunbathing became the rage. This demanded more skin exposed for better results. In the case of women, Ritchie argues, a desire for more mobility and freedom, allowing for easier swimming, played a compounding role.
Ritchie treats in considerable detail the emergence of the beach or shore resort. These started in England--Blackpool., Brighton-- and spread rapidly to the continent and the United States. Eventually, mostly after World War II, beach culture settled down in Asia and elsewhere (though Australia was ahead of the curve). Tensions around class and race played out on the beach, as white beach-goers sought to keep Blacks away and the wealthy to isolate the poor to their own, inferior, shorelines.
Ritchie has dug through an enormous mass of material in compiling his history. (His occasional references to Wikipedia, though, bespeak a little too little digging.) His narrative is mostly descriptive of beach behavior and changes in resorts. What is lacking almost entirely, and which in my opinion reduces the interest of the book, is any extended treatment of the economics of beach-going infrastructure.
Most English beach resorts took over small fishing villages, some of which were economically depressed. When wealthy elites began to arrive, they found accommodations in residents' houses--a situation not at all to their liking. Soon hotels and entertainment centers sprang up, eventually of massive dimensions. Who were the capitalists who made the investment? Where did the capital come from? What was the impact on the local community? Coney Island grew to a huge complex, with rides, food stands, entertainers--again, who had the money to invest and why did they? Here and there Ritchie skates along the edge of these questions, but they are never treated in any detail. There must have been people who made a lot of money off the new beach-going practices, but for the most part they remain anonymous.
Another aspect of emergent beach culture that comes in for less discussion than I expected is morality and debate between the daring and the conservatives about proper attire and, even more, proper behavior. Ritchie notes instances of locals objecting to "immodest" beach wear and quotes a number of blue-haired elites who characterized beach towns as "dissipated." But I for one would like to know more: who were the people on either side? How did the conflicts play out? For example, local small businesses made money off the beach-goers--did they side with them against their neighbors in debates over, say, scanty women's attire? Ritchie remarks here and there on the tendency for vacation spots to encourage visitors to set aside normal social and moral strictures (a sort of "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" approach) but, aside from a few references to sex and the riotousness of college Spring Breakers, he has little to say. But surely the chance to misbehave without consequence away from the disapproving stares of neighbors, relatives, and friends was a major reason to take a beach vacation; this motive was surely always present, but likely grew in importance as the medical model of beach-going faded. Ritchie mentions Gidget once, as a novel about "surfing and love on the beach" (p. 212). A more anodyne characterization would be hard to imagine: in fact, Gidget is overwhelmed by her teenage sexuality, and hopes to lose her virginity on the beach. As such she can stand in for the millions for whom the sun, surf, skimpy bikinis, wet Speedos, heat, and absence of prying eyes stoked longed for libidinal desire.
Thinking about these latter questions brought to mind a much earlier study of the beach: Robert B. Edgerton's Alone Together. Social Order on an Urban Beach (1979). Edgerton and his research assistants hung out on the beaches by Venice Beach and Santa Monica in California and simply acted as anthropologists. Their observations resulted in a detailed, textured account of how class, race, sexuality, age, gender, and other factors determined how the beach was used, what social rules governed beach behavior (which were not the rules of everyday non-beach life), and the rewards people gleaned from their time on the beach (relaxation, ocean play, pick-ups, semi-anonymous sex, and much else). Edgerton wasn't interested in economics--not a word about the cost of construction and maintenance of the Santa Monica pier--but he is clear about what he wants to do and does it extremely well. Alone Together figures in Ritchie's bibliography but I didn't detect much influence.
I shouldn't end on a sour note. The Lure of the Beach is packed with interesting information and I for one came away much better informed about the aspects of beach history that appealed to Ritchie. I'd only say that there is lots more to say about beaches and the roles they play in our lives, especially these days.
But beach behavior is neither inherent nor fixed. Robert Ritchie cites some evidence--slim, it must be admitted--that our deep ancestors prowled and played on South African beaches hundreds of thousands of years ago, and he delves briefly into elite Roman beach life at Baiai, on the Bay of Naples--but his history of humans on the beach really begins in the Early Modern Period, as Europeans started heading to the beach for reasons of health. The ocean was scary--he quotes multiple witnesses who admit the fear they had to overcome to venture into the water. But equipped with baigneurs (assistants who dipped their clients in the waves) and "bathing machines" (movable huts to conceal the bather as she changed and proceeded to the water) and strong medical advice, people took to dipping themselves three times into ocean waters to revive a physiology depleted by city life.
When beach visits began men dipped naked. Walt Whitman caroused in the buff at Coney Island long before it became a byword for tacky amusements. Women faced the problem that exposing skin beyond face and hands was impermissible; inventive types developed coverings even more modest than the burkini to protect women bathers from the leers of watchful men (and other women). Male nudity came to be disapproved by the nineteenth century, and indeed male bathing costumes eventually covered the whole body from shoulders to knees; keeping the chest and nipples concealed was especially important.
As we all know, these sartorial conventions shifted over time; women's costumes shrank, men's too. till we ended up with the woman's tank, the two-piece, and the bikini, and for men Speedos and shorts. The driver toward less and less came with a turn in medical advice. Dropping the earlier view that salt water promoted health, doctors floated the notion that sunshine and the resulting tan were the health factors of the beach, and under the medical-sounding moniker of heliotherapy sunbathing became the rage. This demanded more skin exposed for better results. In the case of women, Ritchie argues, a desire for more mobility and freedom, allowing for easier swimming, played a compounding role.
Ritchie treats in considerable detail the emergence of the beach or shore resort. These started in England--Blackpool., Brighton-- and spread rapidly to the continent and the United States. Eventually, mostly after World War II, beach culture settled down in Asia and elsewhere (though Australia was ahead of the curve). Tensions around class and race played out on the beach, as white beach-goers sought to keep Blacks away and the wealthy to isolate the poor to their own, inferior, shorelines.
Ritchie has dug through an enormous mass of material in compiling his history. (His occasional references to Wikipedia, though, bespeak a little too little digging.) His narrative is mostly descriptive of beach behavior and changes in resorts. What is lacking almost entirely, and which in my opinion reduces the interest of the book, is any extended treatment of the economics of beach-going infrastructure.
Most English beach resorts took over small fishing villages, some of which were economically depressed. When wealthy elites began to arrive, they found accommodations in residents' houses--a situation not at all to their liking. Soon hotels and entertainment centers sprang up, eventually of massive dimensions. Who were the capitalists who made the investment? Where did the capital come from? What was the impact on the local community? Coney Island grew to a huge complex, with rides, food stands, entertainers--again, who had the money to invest and why did they? Here and there Ritchie skates along the edge of these questions, but they are never treated in any detail. There must have been people who made a lot of money off the new beach-going practices, but for the most part they remain anonymous.
Another aspect of emergent beach culture that comes in for less discussion than I expected is morality and debate between the daring and the conservatives about proper attire and, even more, proper behavior. Ritchie notes instances of locals objecting to "immodest" beach wear and quotes a number of blue-haired elites who characterized beach towns as "dissipated." But I for one would like to know more: who were the people on either side? How did the conflicts play out? For example, local small businesses made money off the beach-goers--did they side with them against their neighbors in debates over, say, scanty women's attire? Ritchie remarks here and there on the tendency for vacation spots to encourage visitors to set aside normal social and moral strictures (a sort of "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" approach) but, aside from a few references to sex and the riotousness of college Spring Breakers, he has little to say. But surely the chance to misbehave without consequence away from the disapproving stares of neighbors, relatives, and friends was a major reason to take a beach vacation; this motive was surely always present, but likely grew in importance as the medical model of beach-going faded. Ritchie mentions Gidget once, as a novel about "surfing and love on the beach" (p. 212). A more anodyne characterization would be hard to imagine: in fact, Gidget is overwhelmed by her teenage sexuality, and hopes to lose her virginity on the beach. As such she can stand in for the millions for whom the sun, surf, skimpy bikinis, wet Speedos, heat, and absence of prying eyes stoked longed for libidinal desire.
Thinking about these latter questions brought to mind a much earlier study of the beach: Robert B. Edgerton's Alone Together. Social Order on an Urban Beach (1979). Edgerton and his research assistants hung out on the beaches by Venice Beach and Santa Monica in California and simply acted as anthropologists. Their observations resulted in a detailed, textured account of how class, race, sexuality, age, gender, and other factors determined how the beach was used, what social rules governed beach behavior (which were not the rules of everyday non-beach life), and the rewards people gleaned from their time on the beach (relaxation, ocean play, pick-ups, semi-anonymous sex, and much else). Edgerton wasn't interested in economics--not a word about the cost of construction and maintenance of the Santa Monica pier--but he is clear about what he wants to do and does it extremely well. Alone Together figures in Ritchie's bibliography but I didn't detect much influence.
I shouldn't end on a sour note. The Lure of the Beach is packed with interesting information and I for one came away much better informed about the aspects of beach history that appealed to Ritchie. I'd only say that there is lots more to say about beaches and the roles they play in our lives, especially these days.
September 4, 2022
This is not a global history of the beach. It’s a white western history. Who is still calling that global? Especially in academia. Really disappointed and probably not going to finish it. The prose is pretty dense which I don’t mind necessarily but it’s not exactly fun to read and I’m just so put off by how myopic it is given the title that I’m not inclined to push through
September 1, 2021
Although the subtitle of Ritchie's book promises "A Global History" it really is only a book about how the concept of the beach has been utilized by Western middle-classes from the 19th-century forward. At the same time, the book is very ahistorical in its argument. Sad, because it is such an interesting idea.
December 1, 2022
Although the beach was always there to come to see it the way we do today is one of humanities greatest discoveries. Robert Ritchie puts this point across rather well and appears to be the first one to do so in such a comprehensive way. However, his book would be better off without the "global history" label, which seems to be quite popular these days and tends attract the wrong kind of reader (who comes for the "global" not for the "beach" part of the story). Global histories in general cannot be framed into one book without leaving someone out, and admittedly there are a few societies with beach going cultures that haven't had their story told here.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews