{"product_id":"the-grand-spas-of-central-europe-9781442222366","title":"The Grand Spas of Central Europe","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Grand Spas of Central Europe leads readers on an irresistible tour through the grand spa towns of Central Europefabled places like Baden-Baden, Bad Ems, Bad Gastein, Karlsbad, and Marienbad. Noted historian David Clay Large follows the grand spa story from Greco-Roman antiquity to the present, focusing especially on the years between the French Revolution and World War II, a period in which the major Central European Kurorte (cure-towns) reached their peak of influence and then slipped into decline. Written with verve and affection, the book explores the grand spa towns, which in their prime were an equivalent of today's major medical centers, rehab retreats, golf resorts, conference complexes, fashion shows, music festivals, and sexual hideawaysall rolled into one. Conventional medicine being quite primitive through most of this era, people went to the spas in hopes of curing everything from cancer to gout. But often as not curists also went to play, to be entertained, and to soci\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[Clay Large's] account is spirited and entertaining. * The New York Review Of Books *\u003cbr\u003eWith 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 *\u003cbr\u003eWith 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\u003cbr\u003eIn 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\u003cbr\u003eThere 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\u003cbr\u003eThis 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\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction   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","brand":"Rowman \u0026 Littlefield","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48885636727127,"sku":"9781442222366","price":44.06,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-grand-spas-of-central-europe-9781442222366","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}