Another surfing history book.

[SJB]

The World in the Curl: An Unconventional History of Surfing

by Peter Westwick and Peter Neushul
(Crown, $26)

Finally, a history of surfing not written by one of the cool kids, said Nathan Myers in The Wall Street Journal. While previous surfing chroniclers have tended to be insiders keen on conveying the transcendental hipness of their favorite pastime, history professors Peter Westwick and Peter Neushul are “studious, meticulous,” and quite earnest about sorting fact from myth. Sure, their account “sometimes reads like a well-rehearsed university lecture.” But a sport that’s now practiced by 20 million people surely needs a clear-eyed look.
Surfers, it seems, are “not nearly as cool or subversive as they like to think,” said John Lancaster in The Washington Post. Westwick and Neushul thoroughly debunk the long-standing myth that Christian missionaries in Hawaii abhorred surfing when they first spotted natives riding the waves (only surfing in the nude truly offended the newcomers). What’s more, the 20th-century spread of surfing might never have occurred absent a few assists from the military-industrial complex. It was aircraft-wing technology, for instance, that freed surfers from having to lug around 100-pound redwood boards. And because the Army Corps of Engineers has been relentlessly building and rebuilding the nation’s coastlines for decades, that outfit, the authors write, “has done more to shape surfing than any of the celebrated heroes of surf culture.”
Surfers also are not the pure lovers of nature some pretend to be, said Josh Dzieza in TheDailyBeast.com. Because surf breaks frequently are created by human interventions, wave riders at times find themselves battling conservationists. At the same time, the sport’s boosters can generally be counted on to fight ocean pollution, particularly the sewage outflows that sully some of California’s best breaks. Surfers, it seems, don’t inhabit a purer plane than the rest of us but play at the border between our man-made world and the wild ocean. Understanding as much “doesn’t diminish the sport.” If anything, such insights make surfing more fascinating.
THE WEEKSeptember 6, 2013

[bgreen]

Anything on paipo?

[rodndtube]

From what I have been reading in different books of surfing over the past 4 years I am more inclined to disagree with the authors' contrarian opinon. In addition to frowning on the typical nakedness of the native surfriders the missionaries also had a disdain for gambling and sexual relations after surfing which was quite common. The missionaries were also more focused on "industry" than recreation having quite an impact on then Hawaiian culture. The part of the military-industrial complex is not new either -- Bob Simmons has already been widely credited with several of those innovations. Regardless, this new book is on my current InterLibrary Loan in-process list. Looking forward to giving it a look-see.

[Nels]

My local library got it first thing and I guess I was lucky - picked it off display. Authors are UCSB profs, surfers. I don't remember any paipo content, maybe just mention of prone riding historically. Some of the stuff about the 60's era was interesting from observational POV. Also effects of professionalism and the surf industry. Otherwise as Rod says lots of familiar territory. Mostly familiar territory.

In some ways this may tie into why pro surfing never caught on with sports television after the old ...PSAA?...whatever that California based circuit was. Once the dotcom money died and the ASP bulked up, that vanished. I've always thought that the insistence of trying to explain everything to someone from Mars - every time - created an attention killing lack of momentum for the shows. Then it was the contest format that probably made no sense to Martians, or no more sense to them than to people like me. This book may suffer within the surf community for the same reason. Not sure it was written for the surf community though.

Nels