Splash! 10,000 Years of Swimming

With wit and rich detail, avid swimmer Means (67 Shots) documents the history of swimming, from Earth’s first “one-cell creatures,” which began life in water, through “aquatic apes,” who first mastered the “rivers, deltas, and coastal waters,” to today’s competitive swimmers such as Michael Phelps. Means argues that to take a dip has social, political, cultural, and religious implications—for the Greeks and Romans it was a celebration to be done nude, but in the Middle Ages and more Puritanical time periods, swimming was considered an abomination or a sign of witchcraft and thus forbidden. In the 20th century, Means writes, financial and racial divides have put swim lessons out of reach for many African-Americans. With painstakingly researched historical references, Means humorously imagines a Roman swimming pool the day before Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE: “a gaggle of indefatigable kids list in a noisy game of Marcus Antonius (Marco Polo, before there was a Marco Polo to name it after).” He intersperses his book with the musings of poets and inventors such as Lord Byron and Ben Franklin, along with anecdotes of athletes such as Annette Kellerman, a turn-of-the-20th-century Australian competitive swimmer. Means’s delightful history of humans in water simultaneously educates and entertains. (June)