# Shifting Currents: A World History of Swimming - Hardcover

by **Karen Eva Carr** (Author)

**A deep dive into the history of aquatics that exposes centuries-old tensions of race, gender, and power at the root of many contemporary swimming controversies.**

_Shifting Currents_ is an original and comprehensive history of swimming. It examines the tension that arose when non-swimming northerners met African and Southeast Asian swimmers. Using archaeological, textual, and art-historical sources, Karen Eva Carr shows how the water simultaneously attracted and repelled these northerners--swimming seemed uncanny, related to witchcraft and sin. Europeans used Africans' and Native Americans' swimming skills to justify enslaving them, but northerners also wanted to claim water's power for themselves. They imagined that swimming would bring them health and demonstrate their scientific modernity. As Carr reveals, this unresolved tension still sexualizes women's swimming and marginalizes Black and Indigenous swimmers today. Thus, the history of swimming offers a new lens through which to gain a clearer view of race, gender, and power on a centuries-long scale.

### Author Biography

**Karen Eva Carr** is associate professor emerita in the Department of History at Portland State University. Her books include _Vandals to Visigoths: Rural Settlement Patterns in Early Medieval Spain_.

**Number of Pages:** 472

**Dimensions:** 1.54 x 9.21 x 6.47 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** June 28, 2022

## Details

- **Price:** 38.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 38.00 USD | In stock |

## Images

- Shifting Currents: A World History of Swimming - Hardcover

---

> Source: [Smart supply deals](https://smartsupplydeals.com/products/shifting-currents-a-world-history-of-swimming-hardcover)
> Updated: 2026-07-23