Karsten Plöger

The Engadine

Biography of a Landscape

For more than 150 years, the Engadine has enjoyed an almost legendary reputation as a tourist destination like no other. But the history of this high Alpine valley and its unique landscape runs much deeper than this; it is not only a tale of glamour and luxury, but one too of the constant fight for scarce resources. Men and women have called this often harsh and unforgiving environment home since the fourth millennium BC. They have shaped it and were, in turn, shaped by it. In his sweeping historical narrative, the first of its kind, Karsten Plöger explores the Engadine‘s many and often ancient connections with neighbouring valleys and with the rest of Switzerland and Europe. He writes of farmers, shepherds, and muleteers; of mercenaries and patissiers; of military campaigns and the Winter Olympics in St. Moritz; of the ever-changing climate and of the different paths that took the Upper and the Lower Engadine into the twenty-first century.

Karsten Plöger holds a doctorate in history from the University of Oxford. Following his postgraduate studies, he was a Research Fellow in Late Medieval and Early Modern History at the German Historical Institute London. From 2010 to 2018, he held several senior leadership positions at the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz, including that of Acting Head of School. He lives in Vienna.