The Grand Spas of Central Europe leads readers on an irresistible
tour through the grand spa towns of Central Europe-fabled 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 hideaways-all 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 realities-not 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 society-dimples, warts, and
all.
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