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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.<p>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</p>
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The Beach, Lena Lencek, Gideon Bosker
- Language
- Released
- 1998
- Binding
- (Hardcover)
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- Title
- The Beach
- Subtitle
- The History of Paradise on Earth
- Language
- English
- Authors
- Lena Lencek, Gideon Bosker
- Publisher
- Viking Penguin
- Released
- 1998
- Format
- Hardcover
- Pages
- 336
- ISBN10
- 0436412179
- ISBN13
- 9780436412172
- Series
- Description
- 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.<p>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</p>