Description
Book SynopsisBrings social scientific understandings to bear on tourism in the postindustrial age, during which the middle class has acquired leisure time for international travel. This title examines notions of authenticity, high and low culture, and the construction of social reality around tourism.
Trade Review"
The Tourist is one of those books that can be best enjoyed for its heuristic value, for the questions it raises as much as for the answers it offers." * New York Times *
"MacCannell attempts to create something Levi-Strauss said is impossible: an ethnography of modernity, a detailed anthropological analysis of modern culture. . . . By following the tourist, he believes, we may arrive at a better understanding of ourselves." * Washington Post *
"In the demythologizing tradition of Veblen’s
Theory of the Leisure Class, MacCannell presents the first full-scale sociological examination of modern tourism and sightseeing." * Publishers Weekly *
"More than a perceptive, entertaining discussion of tourists and tourism,
The Tourist is also a skillful blend of structuralist thought. . . . Both MacCannell’s literary style and theoretical sophistication are genuine contributions to sociological scholarship." * Contemporary Sociology *
"Provides a compelling analysis of leisure in contemporary society and the changed nature of the human condition amidst modernity." * Annals of Leisure Research *
Table of ContentsForeword by Lucy Lippard The Tourist in 2013 Introduction to the 1989 Edition Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Modernity and the Production of Touristic Experiences 2. Sightseeing and Social Structure 3. The Paris Case: Origins of Alienated Leisure 4. The Other Attractions 5. Staged Authenticity 6. A Semiotic of Attraction 7. The Ethnomethodology of Sightseers 8. Structure, Genuine and Spurious 9. On Theory, Methods, and Application Epilogue Notes Index
