Inventing the Beach: The Unnatural History of a Natural Place

(via Smithsonian) This summer, millons will flock to beaches all over the world. Children will be splashing in the waves while sunbathers doze on the sand. A day at the beach is a cultural ritual.  But it hasn’t always been this way. From antiquity up through the 18th century, the beach stirred fear and anxiety in the popular imagination. The coastal landscape was synonymous with dangerous wilderness; it was where shipwrecks and natural disasters occurred. What changed its perception?