Читать книгу Empire in Waves. A Political History of Surfing онлайн

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Surfing had come a long way from its near extinction decades before in that cluster of small Pacific islands in which people rode waves while standing. A Hawaiian tradition that had almost disappeared by the turn of the twentieth century had become, by 1945, a minor global pastime; then, in the decades following the Second World War, surfing emerged not only as a sport enjoyed by millions of enthusiasts worldwide but, significantly, as a form of cultural encounter that might go some distance in bridging national or political divides. A variety of factors contributed to surfing’s phenomenal growth. Foremost among these was the sport’s embrace by the American culture industries. In films ranging from Gidget (1959) to the “beach party” pictures of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, Hollywood appropriated surfing and its youthful, seemingly carefree lifestyle while designating Southern California the presumptive center of the surfing universe. Television likewise took to the sport. Gidget made her small-screen debut in 1965 with a young Sally Field in the series’ title role, while ABC’s Wide World of Sports, recognizing surfing’s striking visual qualities, had begun regularly pumping contests into American living rooms in 1962. Surf music became a popular genre, with performers such as the Beach Boys, Dick Dale, and Jan and Dean emerging as best-selling performers. Surfing even entered the world of American letters. Eugene Burdick published The Ninth Wave in 1956—Burdick would shortly thereafter coauthor the influential Cold War novels The Ugly American and Fail-Safe—and Tom Wolfe, that paragon of New Journalism, released his collection of essays The Pump House Gang in 1968.⁵