This book examines the surfer, one of the most significant and enduring archetypes in American popular culture. Lawler sets the surfer against the backdrop of the negative reactions to it by those groups responsible for enforcing the Puritan discipline, offering a fresh take on the relationship between commercial culture and counterculture.

This book examines the surfer, one of the most significant and enduring archetypes in American popular culture. Lawler sets the surfer against the backdrop of the negative reactions to it by those groups responsible for enforcing the Puritan discipline, offering a fresh take on the relationship between commercial culture and counterculture.

Traveling Bodies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Traveling as an Embodied Practice explores the central role the body has in and for traveling and thus complements and expands upon existing research in travel studies with new perspectives on and insights in the entanglement of bodies and traveling. The case studies assembled in this volume discuss a variety of traveling practices, experiences, and media with chapters featuring Asian, American, and European historical and contemporary perspectives. Truly interdisciplinary in its approach, the volume identifies and examines diverse literary, historical and cultural texts, contexts, and modes in which traveling and the body intersect, including ‘classic’ travelogues, (new) media (e.g., film, digital travel apps), surf culture, and travel-inspired tattoos. The contributions offer various avenues for further research, not only for scholars working with body theory and travel (writing), but also for anyone interested in the intersections of literature, culture, media, and embodied practices of traveling.

Imagine surfing a perfect blue wave off a deserted beach of sparkling white sand. This book takes us back to a time when the earliest surfers were busy inventing the first American beach culture. The beautiful and nostalgic photographs that surfer Don James took of himself and his friends from 1936-46 capture the lost Eden of the California surf dream in all its glory and innocence. Over 100 sepia photos.

A definitive and highly readable history of surfing and the cultural, political, economic, and environmental consequences of its evolution from a sport of Hawaiian kings and queens to a billion-dollar worldwide industry Despite its rebellious, outlaw reputation, or perhaps because of it, surfing occupies a central place in the American – and global – imagination, embodying the tension between romantic counterculture ideals and middle-class values, between an individualistic communion with nature and a growing commitment to commerce and technology. In examining the enduring widespread appeal of surfing in both myth and reality, The World in the Curl offers a fresh angle on the remarkable rise of the sport and its influence on modern life. Drawing on Peter Westwick and Peter Neushul’s expertise as historians of science and technology, the environment, and the Cold War, as well as decades of experience as surfers themselves, The World in the Curl brings alive the colorful history of surfing by drawing readers into the forces that fueled the sport's expansion: colonialism, the military-industrial complex, globalization, capitalism, environmental engineering, and race and gender roles. In an engaging and provocative narrative history – from the spread of surfing to the United States, to the development of surf culture, to the reintroduction of women into the sport, to big wave frontiers – the authors draw an indelible portrait of surfing and surfers as actors on the global stage.

This in-depth, photo-packed look at the history and culture of surfers is “meticulously researched, smartly written . . . required reading” (Outside Magazine). Matt Warshaw knows more about surfing than any other person on the planet. After five years of research and writing, Warshaw, a former professional surfer and editor of Surfing magazine, has crafted an unprecedented, definitive history of the sport and the culture it has spawned. With more than 250 rare photographs, The History of Surfing reveals and defines this sport with a voice that is authoritative, funny, and wholly original. The obsessive nature of Warshaw’s endeavor is matched only by the obsessive nature of surfers, who are brought to life in this book in many tales of daring, innovation, athletic achievement, and the offbeat personalities who have made surfing history happen. “The world’s most comprehensive chronicler of the surfing scene.” —Andy Martin, The Independent

“In the not-so-small world of surfing, Phil Jarratt has seen it all. Luckily for us, he’s a fearless, funny storyteller, with a reporter’s unsentimental eye and an endearing modesty. But his memoir is, above all, a haunting self-portrait: the boy practising drop-knee cutbacks in his mother’s full-length mirror in mid-century Wollongong becomes a man.” William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Barbarian Days Life of Brine is the memoir of Phil Jarratt, one of the world’s best-known chroniclers of surfing culture whose lifelong pursuit of the perfect wave has placed him in the midst of some of the most exciting moments in surfing’s modern history. Jarratt, who has courted controversy in his long career as a journalist, editor and documentarian, pulls no punches as he rides an exhilarating wave of nostalgia from the sixties up until now, through the heady days of drugs, alcohol and excess in Bali and Biarritz and other exotic locations in between. Filled with debauchery, reflection and insight, this is a book that will be devoured by surfers young and old.