Heart
Heart

Author: Edmondo De Amicis

Publisher:

Published: 1915

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13:

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At the Beach
At the Beach

Author: Jean-Didier Urbain

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780816634507

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Around the world, when people think of vacation it's the beach they want--even when long distances must be traversed, the seashore is the place to escape the rigors of modern life. How did this come to be, and what does our ongoing love affair with the beach mean? How do shore vacations differ from traditional tourism, and what does this tell us about our fears and dreams? In At the Beach, Jean-Didier Urbain offers witty and insightful answers to these questions. Urbain traces the transformation of the beach from a place of mythological threats and a demanding workplace fraught with danger to a destination for medical treatment and the pursuit of pleasure. He looks to the emergence of the modern vacation in the nineteenth century, examines representations of beachgoing in literature and the arts, and shows the transgressive side of beach culture--from nudism to hedonism to various "scandals" about costume, behavior, and sexuality that make the beach the site of social spectacle as well as leisure. Urbain's ultimate focus is the paradoxical enterprise of the residential seaside vacationer, who travels in order to stay in one place and who leaves the everyday world behind to reconstruct an idealized version of it at the shore. He argues that unlike tourists, who move from place to place, beach vacationers are not seeking to explore nature, to discover other cultures, or even to "get away from it all"; rather, they are attempting to re-create their own identities through a simplified community they can no longer find elsewhere. Blending history with social observation, Urbain presents an original, incisive, and entertaining account of this enduring ritual of escape and recreation.

Heaven's Touch
Heaven's Touch

Author: James B. Kaler

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-11-29

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 0691242380

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A breathtaking account of how the surrounding cosmos impacts life on Earth Did you know that as you read these words showers of high-speed particles from exploding stars are raining down on you? As you gaze into the starry sky, you might feel isolated from the Universe around you—but you're not. This book reveals the startling ways life on Earth is touched by our cosmic environment, and demonstrates why without such contact, life itself wouldn't be possible. Heaven's Touch embarks on an unforgettable journey across the cosmos, beginning in near space with a look at the gentle ebb and flow of lunar and solar tides. Acclaimed astronomer James Kaler describes their subtle effects on our world and also explores the Sun's more potent influences, such as solar storms that cause auroras, give comets their tails, and knock out power grids on Earth. He ventures across the Solar System to consider how the planets can act to produce climate change, even global disaster. Kaler shows how Jupiter's gravity can throw asteroids toward potentially devastating collision with Earth, and how even our whole Galaxy might hurl comet storms at us. He then takes us into deepest space to describe the cosmic rays launched at us from exploding stars, and considers not just how these exploders might harm us, but how they also join together in the creation of stars and how they serve to populate the Universe with the very building blocks of life. Informative and entertaining, Heaven's Touch reveals how intimately connected we really are with the dynamic Universe in which we live.