Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 476
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-1-4422-2236-6 • Hardback • October 2015 • $47.00 • (£36.00)
David Clay Large is a senior fellow at the Institute of European Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and professor of history at the Fromm Institute, University of San Francisco. He has also taught at Smith College, Yale University, and Montana State University. Among his many books are Berlin, Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936, and Munich1972: Tragedy, Terror, and Triumph at the Olympic Games. Large divides his time between San Francisco and Bozeman, Montana.
Introduction
Chapter 1: Spas and Spa Culture from the Greco-Roman World to the Grand Tour
The Ancient West
Decline and Resurrection
The Grand Tour
Chapter 2: Baden-Baden: The “Summer Capital of Europe”
Becoming Baden-Baden
Faites Votre Jeu: The Age of Bénazet
August Granville’s Baden-Baden
The “Jewish Question”
Getting There
The Revolutions of 1848–1849
Chapter 3: Muses in the Water
Two Titans at the Fountains: Goethe and Beethoven
Scribble, Squander, Soak: Romantic-Era Writers in Baden-Baden
The Sound of Music
Chapter 4: Roulettenburg: Russian Writers at the Grand German Spas
Troubled in Soul (and Bowels): Nikolai Gogol in Baden-Baden
Ivan Turgenev’s Path to the West
Turgenev versus Tolstoy
Ménage à Trois on the Oos
Fedor Dostoevsky in German Spa Land
Showdown in Baden-Baden
Do Svidaniya to Deutschland
Chapter 5: Politics on the Promenade
A Line in the Water
The German Question(s)
Five Balls over the Waters: Bismarck’s Alliance System
Vicky, Willy, Nicky, Bertie, and Franz Josef
Chapter 6: Modernization and Its Discontents
Innovations
Medicalization: “It’s Not Just about the Waters Anymore!”
A Jewish Space
Taking the Waters with Marx/Twain
Chapter 7: Trouble in Paradise: Spa-Town Life from World War I to the Triumph of Hitler
The Grand Spas at War
German Spa Towns and the Weimar Republic
Rump Austria
Slouching toward Berlin: Karlsbad and Marienbad in the Twenties and Thirties
Chapter 8: Brown Waters: Grand Spas under the Third Reich
Nazis and Spas
“Germany’s Visiting Card”
“Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer”
A Coda: Badenheim 1939
Wartime
Chapter 9: A New Beginning
Postwar
Recovery
Epilogue: The Grand Spas Today
Acknowledgments
Principal Sources and Suggestions for Further Reading
Index
About the Author
[Clay Large's] account is spirited and entertaining.— New York Review of Books
With a focus on the grand spas of Germany and Habsburg Austria, the author of this book provides an engrossing and entertaining history of their development as centers of healing and as hubs of social, cultural, and political maneuvering. His anecdotes about famous cultural figures taking the waters lend fresh insight into their influence and personalities.
— Historian
With scintillating wit and a storyteller's élan, David Large is the perfect guide to the colorful history of Europe's spa culture. This is serious scholarship leavened with delicious gossip about spa celebrities, from Beethoven and Tolstoy to Karl Marx and Mark Twain.— Adrienne Mayor, author of The Poison King and The Amazons
In this learned, thoroughly researched, and elegant study, the distinguished Central European historian David Large begins our grand tour of spas with Greek and Roman bathing rituals, carrying his fascinating story into the turn of the twentieth century.— John Merriman, Charles Seymour Professor of History, Yale University
There is no better, more mischievous, more companionable guide to German history than David Clay Large. Once again he has written a book that draws on deep expertise, deep research, a keen knowledge of social texture, and yet reads like a guilty pleasure. The history of the spas reveals modern Europeans wrapped only in towels.— David Quammen, author of The Song of the Dodo and Spillover
This absorbing book is just as diverting and delightful as the places it chronicles once were. Large writes with verve and style, and he knows how to put vivid characters and vignettes to the service of important historical points. An altogether arresting and rewarding overview of modern European history through an unconventional and entertaining lens.— Peter Hayes, Northwestern University
Only comprehensive history of Central European Spas in any language
First major study of grand European spas in English
Based on original research and personal experience
Engaging style and accessible prose
Excellent historical guide for visits to grand European spas