Skiing into Modernity: A Cultural and Environmental History by Andrew Denning (review)

In Skiing into Modernity: A Cultural and Environmental History, Andrew Denning traces the development of Alpine (downhill) skiing and the sport’s growth in the European region for which it is named, as well as the changing cultural understanding of both from the nineteenth century through the 1970s. Central to his argument are the various meanings ascribed to skiing and the Alps over the years, which Denning calls “Alpine modernism,” described as the “cultural distinctiveness of skiing, elaborating a dynamic and volatile cultural ideology” (11). The relationship between humankind and nature continually changed through the act of skiing, ultimately resulting in the modernization of the Alps, attracting millions of visitors a year.

Alpine skiing, as Denning demonstrates throughout eight chapters, is full of contradictions. Skiing modernized the “Alpine wasteland” in the middle of Europe, transforming the region from a natural escape from the urban ills of the fin-de-siècle into a “winter wonderland” (10), which relied on mass media and twentieth-century consumption habits to drive tourism. As modern amenities popularized the sport, much of the early meanings that skiers had ascribed to the sport disappeared (111). Even the notion of skiing as a Volkssport was met with contrasting ideas amongst the skiers themselves regarding whether it was Romantic and spiritual or something that should be spread to the masses (67).

These contradictions also appear in the role of gender in skiing. Women had long participated in the sport, and its demand for functional clothing was welcomed by the new woman of the 1920s, yet advertisements for ski resorts and products often depicted the ski bunny, an object of sexual desire. Denning includes many advertisements featuring skiing, but these could have been expanded with additional examples to illustrate further the contested meanings.

One of the greatest strengths of Denning’s book is his transnational approach. Whereas regional studies that straddle international borders typically address a single border between two states (such as Peter Sahlins’ Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees, Berkeley, 1989), the great expanse of the Alps — covering Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, and Italy — requires Denning to take a truly transnational view of the sport and region. Not only is the book a history of a vast area, but the individuals who developed the sport — from Norwegian students studying at German universities to British men and women visiting resorts to take the airs to tourists from one Alpine state taking ski vacations in another — also crossed national borders and shared ideas. Although the views of the German-speaking lands dominate the cultural meanings ascribed to skiing and the mountains within Denning’s book, their centrality is warranted due to the slower development of the sport and winter resorts on the French and Italian sides of the mountains (55). Only later in the 1960s did the French become skiing pioneers, creating a model of constructing comfortable, self-sufficient winter resorts. While these efforts transformed winter tourism, they also led to many resorts being short-lived as ski consumers turned to newer resorts with even more modern amenities (151). Recognizing this role of the French Alps within the ski industry’s history provides a much needed background to understanding the problems of later Winter Olympics in France (Grenoble, 1968 and Albertville, 1992).

Included within Denning’s examination of the changing and contested cultural meanings of skiing are various clubs and organizations that shaped the sport. Unlike many sport history works, the organizations and events (such as the Olympic Games) are not the central focus but instead appear as their ideas contributed to the debates concerning the sport, such as the Nordic-Alpine division within the International Ski Federation. Indeed, Denning skillfully combines sport, cultural, and environmental histories to demonstrate how the act of skiing and the place of the Alps were central both in developing a sport and in changing the landscape into a site...