In this episode, Dr. Scott Laderman, professor of modern United States history at the University of Minnesota in Duluth, and I talk about his book, Empire in Waves: A Political History of Surfing. Scott’s book shows that “while wave riding is indeed capable of stimulating tremendous pleasure, its globalization went hand in hand with the blood and repression of the long twentieth century.” Additionally, Scott and I talk about an article he’s working on related to sexism and surfing culture, which Scott considers to be the “missing chapter” from Empire in Waves.  While Empire in Waves was mainly a “male-centered” political surf history, his upcoming article looks the legacy of sexism in the sport of surfing in the United States, arguing that “surfing was sexist because American culture was sexist.”

Scott Laderman is a professor of history at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. His previous books include Tours of Vietnam: War, Travel Guides, and Memory (2009) and Empire in Waves: A Political History of Surfing (2014).