Masculinity and Danger on the Eighteenth-Century Grand Tour
Synopsis
The Grand Tour was a journey to continental Europe undertaken by British nobility and wealthy landed gentry during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As a rite of passage, the Tour also played an important role in the formation of contemporary notions of elite masculinity.
Examining letters, diaries and other records left by Grand Tourists, tutors and their families, this book demonstrates how the Tour was used to educate elite young men in a wide variety of skills, virtues and masculine behaviours that extended well beyond polite society.
Sarah Goldsmith argues that dangerous experiences, in particular, were far more central to the Tour as a means of constructing Britain’s next generation of leaders than has previously been acknowledged. Influenced by aristocratic concepts of honour and cultures of military leadership, elites viewed experiences of danger and hardship as powerfully transformative and therefore as central to the process of constructing masculinity.
Far from viewing danger as a disruptive force, Grand Tourists willingly tackled a variety of social, geographical and physical perils, gambling their way through treacherous landscapes; scaling mountains, volcanoes and glaciers; and encountering war and disease. Through this innovative study of danger, Goldsmith offers a revision of eighteenth-century elite masculine culture and the critical role the Grand Tour played within this.
Dr Sarah Goldsmith is a lecturer in urban and material culture history at the University of Edinburgh, having previously held a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship at the University of Leicester.
Masculinity and Danger on the Eighteenth-Century Grand Tour appears in New Historical Perspectives, an Open Access monograph series for Early Career Scholars from the Royal Historical Society and Institute of Historical Research.
Read more about Sarah's book, and the NHP series, on the Institute of Historical Research blog 'On History' (November 2020).
Chapters
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Introduction
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1. Hazarding chance: a history of eighteenth-century danger
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2. Military mad: war and the Grand Tour
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3. Wholesome dangers and a stock of health: exercise, sport and the hardships of the road
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4. Fire and ice: mountains, glaciers and volcanoes
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5. Dogs, servants and masculinities: writing about danger and emotion on the Grand Tour
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Conclusion
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Appendix
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Bibliography
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