The Image of Georgian Bath, 1700-2000: Towns, Heritage, and History [Hardcover]

Peter Borsay (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0198202652 | ISBN-13: 978-0198202653 | Publication Date: August 24, 2000

Perhaps no British city is more intimately associated with its historic imagery than Bath, which is often considered the classic Georgian city. This interdisciplinary study explores the evolution, structure, and uses of the image of Georgian Bath, from its genesis in the eighteenth century to its renaissance in the twentieth. Peter Borsay examines the history of Bath's image, covering both the city's biography and architecture and analyzing the media through which Bath's image has been transmitted. He includes discussions of the commercial, social, political, and psychological uses the images and relates his findings to current debates on towns, heritage, and the changing nature of history.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`Well researched and neatly illustrated, it provides some fascinating gems plucked from a mass of tourist literature designed to sell images of Bath to would-be visitors.' EHR June 01

`a thought provoking study that accomplishes Borsay's purpose with a style and panache that the Georgians would appreciate. The themes it raises should interest all historians who want to look at texts in new ways and see complexities in multiple narratives.' Susan E. Whyman, H-Albion

`Borsay has remained true to his book's purpose and has developed a lucid argument. He has creatively brought the relationships of town, heritage, and history to center stage, at a time when the countryside/urban model is being debated in Britain.' Susan E. Whyman, H-Albion

`the concluding chapter, which integrates notions of towns, heritage, and history, makes the most valuable contribution to our understanding of urban history. It is the thoughtful result of wide reading, deep thinking, and even passion. This section teems with thought-provoking ideas, and is recommended for all types of historians.' Susan E. Whyman, H-Albion

`extremely well researched and will prove a valuable contribution to our understanding of Britain's urban heritage.' Contemp Rev. Jan 01.

` A study that abounds with the wonderful specificity and particularity of lived experience. Peter Borsay has clearly fulfilled his projected aim, to uncover the past 'not as historiography and theory, but as practical phenomenon which affected the way a specific locale evolved, and how its inhabitants and visitors conducted and experienced their lives'. Would that every provincial city had its Borsay!' Eighteenth Century Studies On-line Discussion List

About the Author

Peter Borsay is a Senior Lecturer in History at University of Wales, Lampeter.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 456 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 24, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198202652
• ISBN-13: 978-0198202653
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,969,056 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Making History, June 16, 2002

By 

Adam Mason (Bristol, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Image of Georgian Bath, 1700-2000: Towns, Heritage, and History (Hardcover)

Think of Bath today and one naturally lights upon the Roman baths and Jane Austen. It is these two features that have helped make the city one of the most visited places in England, where it is not unusual to see a party of French school children parading around the baths, as it is to see a Japanese couple taking afternoon tea in the pump room, if not visiting the newly arrived Jane Austen house or marvelling at the architecture, the ultimate in Georgian elegance. Though the visitors were not always so international, Bath has always attracted tourists, for that is its very essence. It has been a resort since the 1700s, always a place for recreation, never business. Initially the sickly came here to take the waters, but this soon became a highly fashionable pursuit, which one could partake in while also engaging in the perhaps more enticing gambling activities and the exclusive social round. Amazingly such pleasures made Bath the seventh largest British city in the eighteenth century. Fittingly then it was also one of the most written about - by physicians selling the supposedly therapeutic waters, to travel writers, novelists, poets, and ultimately guidebook compilers. If nothing else it was the ultimate hangout of the literati outside of London - Defoe, Burney, Smollett, Johnson and Austen were all known to have visited there. There is thus an inexhaustible textual legacy of the city in which to delve into.
As a much represented city Bath makes a worthy subject for Peter Borsay's innovative historical approach, following on from his interest in provincial urban spaces. His subject is the representation of Georgian Bath as depicted by thousands of writers who had any connections with the city. It is a history of its image rather than its reality therefore, taking in a rich pool of written material - for Bath is according to Borsay an 'imaginative space', its image being central to its place within Georgian society and thereafter. It is also an 'interdisciplinary' study, a current buzzword within the realm of academic research.
Borsay is well qualified to undertake such a laborious enterprise involving relentless poring through infinite sources of literature pertaining to Bath, much being the product of eminent writers but an equal amount belonging to now forgotten guidebook scribblers. Within the field of urban history he has already put the city on the map for representing a hugely important provincial centre that drew influence away from the metropololis in early modern England. He has written prolifically on spa towns and their highly sophisticated social activities in this period, and it is right that the most important of these should recieve such a detailed and scholarly study focussing on its all important image - used to draw both health seekers and pleasure seekers alike.
Borsay compiles his sources well and with judgement, pulling together a highly readable and lucid study. The contemporary representation of Bath to Georgian visitors offers the most engaging part of this book, but of further interest is its image within 1990s society. Within the index we find Richard Nash and Thomas Gainsborough, but also the likes of Simon Schama, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. For Bath, to this day, continues to portray an image of Georgian neoclassicism and elegance, and one that is continually being exploited by both historians and politicians.
Borsay might have analysed pictures and printed materials more within this study as Bath has a rich pictorial past, but this perhaps merits a wholly seperate work. As it stands this book will be of interest to anyone interested in Georgian Bath - be their concern historical, geographical, literary or architectural. It is the only comprehensive study to be found on Bath's image in history, and as such it is a welcome addition to its vast bibliography, perhaps to be used as an aid for anyone contemplating a further foray into its past. Few cities would merit such an exhaustive study of its own imaginative legacy but few cities have depended so much on its own image, this having long been the basis of its economy. It is an irony, however, that Jane Austen, a woman who wholly disliked Bath for its mercantile marriage market - and satirised it so pointedly in her novels presenting the most negative of pictures - should be the current selling point of that city, and a major attraction upon the tourist heritage trail.

4.0 out of 5 stars Making History, June 16, 2002

By 

Adam Mason (Bristol, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Image of Georgian Bath, 1700-2000: Towns, Heritage, and History (Hardcover)

Think of the city of Bath today and one naturally lights upon the Roman baths and Jane Austen. It is these two features that have helped make the city one of the most visited places in England, where it is not unusual to see a party of French school children parading around the baths, as it is to see a Japanese couple taking afternoon tea in the pump room, if not visiting the newly arrived Jane Austen house or marvelling at the architecture, the ultimate in Georgian neoclassicism. Though the visitors were not always so international, Bath has always attracted tourists, for that is its very essence. It has been a pleasure resort since the early 1700s, always a place for recreation, never business. Initially the sickly came here to take the waters, but this soon became a highly fashionable pursuit which one could partake in while also engaging in the perhaps more enticing gambling activities and the exclusive social round. Amazingly such pleasures made Bath the seventh largest British city in the eighteenth century. Fittingly then it was also one of the most written about - by physicians, travel writers, novelists, poets, and ultimately guidebook anthologers. To name but few notable names, Defoe, Burney, Smollett, Johnson and Austen were all known to have visited there. There is thus an inexhaustible textual legacy pertaining to the city.

As a much represented city Bath makes a worthy subject for Peter Borsay's innovative historical approach, following on from his interest in provincial urban spaces. His subject is the representation of Georgian Bath as depicted by thousands of writers who had any connections with the city. It is a history of its image rather than its reality therefore, an interdisciplinary study taking in a rich pool of written material - for Bath is according to Borsay an 'imaginative space', its image being central to its place within Georgian society and thereafter. BR>

Borsay is well qualified to undertake such a laborious enterprise involving relentless poring through infinite sources of literature pertaining to Bath, much being the product of eminent writers but an equal amount belonging to now forgotten guidebook scribblers. Within the field of urban history he has already established Bath as representing a hugely important provincial centre that drew influence away from the metropololis in early modern England. He has written prolifically on spa towns and their highly sophisticated social activities in this period, and it is right that the most important of these should recieve such a detailed and scholarly study focussing on its all important image - used to draw both health seekers and pleasure seekers alike.

Borsay compiles his sources well and with judgement, pulling together a highly readable and lucid study. The contemporary representation of Bath to Georgian visitors offers the most engaging part of this book, but of further interest is its image within 1990s society. Within the index we predictably find Richard Nash and Thomas Gainsborough, but also the likes of Simon Schama, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. For Bath, to this day, continues to portray an image of Georgian elegance, and one that is continually being exploited by both historians and politicians.

Borsay might have analysed pictures and printed materials more within this study as Bath has a rich pictorial past, but this perhaps merits a wholly seperate work. As it stands this book will be of interest to anyone interested in Georgian Bath - be their concern historical, geographical, literary or architectural. Few cities would merit such an exhaustive study of its own imaginative legacy but few cities have depended so much on its own image, this having long been the basis of its economy. It is an irony, however, that Jane Austen, a woman who wholly disliked Bath for its mercantile marriage market - and satirised it so pointedly in her novels (presenting the most negative of pictures) should be the current selling point of that city, and a major attraction upon its tourist heritage trail.