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Skiing into Modernity: A Cultural and Environmental History. By Andrew Denning (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2015), 236 pp. $65.00 cloth, $29.95 paper

One of the more significant sociocultural changes within the last two centuries has been the rise of global networks of individuals who identify less with work than with play and who seek to alter the social spaces of rural landscapes to facilitate recreation. There have been many works on the ecological, imperial, and industrial implications of climbing, skiing, and surfing, but few studies frame outdoor play in the context of modernity or explore its cultural implications. Denning rectifies this situation with a sophisticated and readable history of European skiing. Grounded in English-, French-, and Germanic-language sources, as well as geographical, sociological, and literary theory, Skiing into Modernity traces the transmission of ski technology to Central Europe and its adaptation to steep slopes, as well as the rise of a recreation industry. One aim of the book is to link the zealous rivalries among enthusiasts to landscape ideology. The distinctions between “Nordic” (crosscountry) and “Alpine” (downhill) were not just environmental and technological but cultural. Each landscape required skiers to use particular tools and techniques, but what emerged from these environmental experiences was what Denning calls a “kinesthetic, or aesthetic of movement” (78). On one side were Nordic aficionados who linked skiing in the flats and rolling hills with tradition; on the other side were Alpine devotees who celebrated the speed and sinuous movements of steep gliding as signs of modernity. In reality, skiers in the mountains used many techniques in the era before lifts, but the factions did not reach an entente until the 1930s. Denning avoids being bogged down in these debates by highlighting the many ways in which both cultures were modern. All forms of skiing developed athletic competitions that stressed objective measurement. Skiers established transnational associations, disseminated cultural and technical information via mass media, and cultivated forms of mass consumption. They also passionately believed the spiritual and sporting benefits of spontaneous movement would restore harmony to industrialized society. Denning sees in the sport’s “ability to reconcile various dichotomies—nature/culture, mind/body, modern/traditional, and emotional/intellectual— . . . an ideal response to modern conditions” (108). Conditions did not remain static, however. Two forces continually reshaped Alpine skiing. One was the interplay between technology and movement. In the early twentieth century, downhill skiers emphasized the ability to control gravity through a graceful relationship between body and skis, but as the equipment improved, speed became the dominant value. By the postwar period, “Taylorist productivism. . . . [made] movement a means to an end” (125). The other great force was popularity. The demographic pressures on ski resorts transformed Alpine cultures Reviews