Cultural and Social Histories of the Grand Hotel : Locally Grounded, Globally Networked

This collection offers an innovative, comparative and global reinterpretation of the origins and development of a modern institution; The Grand Hotel. Bringing together examples from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, each chapter develops a historical case study between c.1875 to 1950 to explore how each hotel shaped, and was shaped by, its specific setting, and how it related to a wider, global hotel culture.

In exploring what has long been seen as a landmark institution of urban, capitalist modernity, Cultural Histories of the Grand Hotel critically questions long-held assumptions about its chronology of development, as well as its establishment and diffusion. From a variety of historical perspectives, scholars approach its social and cultural functions, as well as its built form, to reveal how the hotel was both locally embedded and globally networked. ‘Grand hotel culture’ was not a singular phenomenon; nor was it transmitted or transfused in one direction. This collection of essays argues against some widely held beliefs around the study of the ‘grand hotel’ and its transnational culture of luxury, especially in relation to colonialism, in favour of a more nuanced understanding of its diverse ‘cultures’ and chronologies of evolution.