Ski Style: Sport and Culture in the Rockies (CultureAmerica) - Hardcover

Coleman, Annie Gilbert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0700613412 ISBN 13: 9780700613410

Publisher: University Press of Kansas, 2004

Synopsis

Visitors to Colorados famous ski resorts embrace alpine adventures, luxurious amenities, and a glamorous nightlife, all against a backdrop of towering mountains and high-drifted snow. Wherever they go in search of fresh powder, one thing is certain: skiing has become a major part of recreational sport and culture and, in the process, dramatically altered Americas social, physical, economic, and imaginative landscapes.

Annie Coleman has written the first cultural history of skiing in the United States, telling how this European sport evolved into an American industry combining recreation, tourism, consumption, and wilderness—along with a solid dose of exhilaration and a dash of celebrity. She reveals how the meaning of skiing changed over the twentieth century, how sport and leisure in America came to be about status and style as much as about physical activity, and how modern consumer culture merged the mythic West with real western places.

Coleman traces skiing from its Norse roots and Alpine influences through the utility of ski travel in the winter Rockies to the rise of Colorado resorts. Much more than a history of the sport, her work explains how the recreation industry sold the experience of skiing and created mythic mountain landscapes with real problems—and a ski culture that exalts celebrity and status over the physical act of skiing.

Along the way, Coleman looks at bums, bunnies, betties, and everyone else who uses the sport to define who they are and how they fit in. Todays skiers are more diverse than they were half a century ago (though chances are theyre wealthier), and even snowboarders have joined the very culture they once opposed—reviving places like Aspen through a subversive youth culture gone mainstream.

The allure of white powder at high altitudes, manicured ski runs designed to frame picture-perfect views, the illusion of danger—the American skiing experience is all of this and more. Extensively researched and engagingly written, Ski Style puts readers on the slopes—and in the lodges—to show what its really all about.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Like a good ski run, Ski Style offers sensory pleasure and variety of terrain. Filled with insights, Coleman's book should appeal to ski bums and snow bunnies, and to historians of sport, tourism, the west, race, and gender."--Bernard Mergen, author of Snow in America

"A perceptive examination of skiing's influence on American culture and of culture on the sport."--John Fry, President, International Skiing History Association

"An original and important book presented with both skill and flare."--Peggy Shaffer, author of See America First

"Essential reading."--E. John B. Allen, author of From Skisport to Skiing

About the Author:

Annie Gilbert Coleman grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire, and skied at various times for the Ford Sayre Ski Program, the Killington Freestyle Ski Team, the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team, and the Williams College Ski Team. Her article "The Unbearable Whiteness of Skiing" in the Pacific Historical Review won the W. Turrentine Jackson Prize. She is assistant professor of history and adjunct assistant professor of American Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0700613412
• ISBN 13: 9780700613410
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320