Dive into the captivating world of swimming with Eric Chaline's exploration, 'Pleasure Beckons at the Water's Edge.' This BRAND NEW title (ISBN: 9781780238197) published by Reaktion Books in 2017 is perfect for swimming enthusiasts and cultural historians alike. Chaline's work elegantly deciphers the rich history of swimming from its early roots in prehistory to its development into an integral leisure activity and competitive sport. The book uncovers the profound connections between swimming and various aspects of human life, including religious rituals, trade, warfare, and even medicine.

Throughout this engrossing narrative, swimming emerges as a powerful symbol of not only leisure and endurance but also adventure, exploration, and excellence. This book delves into the physicality and sensuality of swimming, revealing how these elements might have influenced human evolution. Wild swimmers celebrate swimming as a pathway to spiritual awakening, highlighting the discipline and mental clarity that this water-based activity can foster.

Whether you are looking to understand swimming's cultural significance or embrace its transformative power, this book captures the fluid currents of our aquatic heritage and future. Perfect as a gift or for personal exploration, it reinforces swimming as a key component of human experience across time.

Note: Shipping for this item is free. Please allow up to 6 weeks for delivery. Once your order is placed, it cannot be cancelled.

Note: Shipping for this item is free. Please allow up to 6 weeks for delivery. Once your order is placed, it cannot be cancelled.

Condition: BRAND NEW
ISBN: 9781780238197
Year: 2017
Publisher: Reaktion Books


Description:


'Pleasure beckons at the water's edge.'

With these words, Eric Chaline celebrates the physicality and sensuality of swimming —attributes that might have contributed to the evolution of the human species. Chaline's comprehensive account surveys swimming from prehistory to the present day. He decodes the earliest human myths to reconstruct swimming's prehistory and history; he explains its role in religious rituals, trade and manufacture, warfare and medicine, and chronicles its transformation into the leisure activity and competitive sport that together have made it the most commonly practiced physical pastime in the developed world.

Swimming is now a cultural marker that stands for eroticism, leisure, endurance, adventure, exploration, and excellence, and latterly, like other disciplines that use repetitive movements to discipline the body and still the mind, it is held by wild swimmers to be a lane to spiritual awakening —one stroke at a time. There is no single story of human swimming, but many currents that merge, diverge, and remerge towards a future in which our survival may depend on our ability to adapt to life in an aquatic world.