The Grand Spas of Central Europe: A History of Intrigue, Politics, Art, and Healing

(Hardback)

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The 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 todays 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 socialize. In their heyday the grand spas were hotbeds of cultural creativity, true meccas of the arts. High-level politics was another grand spa specialty, with statesmen descending on the Kurorte to negotiate treaties, craft alliances, and plan wars.

This military scheming was just one aspect of a darker side to the grand spa story, one rife with nationalistic rivalries, ethnic hatred, and racial prejudice. The grand spas, it turns out, were microcosms of changing sociopolitical realitiesnot at all the timeless oases of harmony they often claimed to be. The Grand Spas of Central Europe holds up a gilt-framed but clear-eyed mirror to the ever-changing face of European societydimples, warts, and all.

Reviews

[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 lan, 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

Author Bio

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.