' Pleasure beckons at the water's edge' With these words Eric Chaline celebrates the physicality & sensuality of swimming
- attributes that might have contributed to the evolution of the human species Chaline's comprehensive account surveys swimming from prehistory to the present day He decodes the earliest human myths to reconstruct swimming's prehistory & history; he explains its role in religious rituals trade & manufacture warfare & medicine & chronicles its transformation into the leisure activity & competitive sport that together have made it the most commonly practiced physical pastime in the developed world Swimming is now a cultural marker that stands for eroticism leisure endurance adventure exploration & excellence & latterly like other disciplines that use repetitive movements to discipline the body & still the mind it is held by wild swimmers to be a lane to spiritual awakening
- one stroke at a time There is no single story of human swimming but many currents that merge diverge & remerge towards a future in which our survival may depend on our ability to adapt to life in an aquatic world