From exotic leisure to a global movement

From a cult sport, to a lifestyle, to a philosophy – ever since Captain James Cook observed the first surfers off Hawaii in 1778, the sport has developed into a global movement, with over 20 million surfers around the world. Thanks to fashion, film, art and music, surfing is featuring in popular culture more prominently than ever before, and cultural anthropologist Jim Heimann’s new standard work on the sport – titled simply ‘Surfing’– documents its surge in popularity. 

Divided into five chronological chapters and enriched with comment from the most important surfing journalists, the book explains how the sport morphed into a global subculture, and became recognised as a philosophical movement. If you’re a keen surfer, there should definitely be a space on the bookshelf for this one.