William Bainbridge – författare

In this unique text, Stark and Bainbridge begin with basic statements about human nature and, employing the principles of logic and philosophy, build toward increasingly complex propositions about societies and their religious institutions. They provide a rigorous yet flexible sociological theory of religion as well as a general sociological model for deriving macrolevel theory from microlevel evidence.

Guided by the romantic compass of Turner, Byron, and Ruskin, Victorian travellers to the Dolomites sketched in the mountainous backdrop of Venice a cultural ‘Petit Tour’ of global significance. As they zigzagged across a debatable land between Italy and Austria, Victorians discovered a unique geography characterized by untrodden peaks and unfrequented valleys. The discovery of this landscape blended aesthetic, scientific, and cultural values utterly different from those engendered by the bombastic conquests of the Western Alps achieved during the ‘Golden Age of Mountaineering’. Filtered through memories of the Venetian Grand Tour, the Victorian encounter with the Dolomites is revealed through a series of distinct cultural practices that paradigmatically define a ‘Silver Age of Mountaineering’. This book shows how these practices are more ethnographic than imperialistic, more feminine than masculine, more artistic than sportive — rather than racing to summits, the Silver Age is about rambling, rather than conquering peaks, it is about sketching them in an intimate interaction with the Dolomite landscape.

This work reframes the Victorian encounter with the Dolomites through the lens of Grand Tour memories, revealing a distinctive Silver Age of Mountaineering defined by ethnographic rather than imperialistic approaches.