The Draw Of The Alps

The Alps have exerted a hold over the German cultural imagination throughout the modern period, enthralling writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, and tourists alike. The Draw of the Alps interrogates the dynamics of this fascination. Though philosophical and aesthetic responses to Alpine space have shifted over time, the Alps continue to captivate at an individual and collective level. This has resulted in myriad cultural engagements with Alpine space, as this interdisciplinary volume attests. Literature, photography, and philosophy continue to engage with the Alps as a place in which humans pursue their cognitive and aesthetic limits. At the same time, individuals engage physically with the alpine environment, whether as visitors through the well-established leisure industry, as enthusiasts of extreme sports, or as residents who feel the acute end of social and environmental change. Taking a transnational view of Alpine space, the volume demonstrates that the Alps are not geographically peripheral to the nation-state but are a vibrant locus of modern cultural production. As The Draw of the Alps attests, the Alps are nothing less than a crucible in which understandings of what it means to be human have been forged.

Presents the history, geography, and ecology of the Alps.

"Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino" by Samuel Butler Though Samuel Butler was an English novelist and critic, he was also a well-versed traveler. In this book, he takes readers into Northern Italy and the Alps to visit the religious churches and sanctuaries located there. From Faido to Fusio, readers are taken on a journey through this frigid yet charming landscape to see why so many people chose there as their refuge.