In Naked: A Cultural History of American Nudism, historian Brian Hoffman chronicles the rise and fall (and rise again) of the movement that was brought to North America by German immigrants in the 1930s.
Nov. 17, 2015
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By Jennifer Hunter The Reader
The nudist movement was established in North America in the early 1930s by German immigrants who believed nudism was healthy, a way to commune directly with nature. The movement flourished and waned, forever trying to distance itself from pornography. Brian Hoffman tells the story in Naked: A Cultural History of American Nudism. Our conversation has been edited for length.
Nudism is an outré subject for a history book. Your friends and colleagues assumed you were a nudist looking to justify a cause.
