The Beach

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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. 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