The Tourist - by Dean MacCannell (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this classic analysis of travel and sightseeing, author Dean MacCannell brings social scientific understandings to bear on tourism in the postindustrial age, during which the middle class has acquired leisure time for international travel.

In The Tourist--now with a new introduction framing it as part of a broader contemporary social and cultural analysis--the author examines notions of authenticity, high and low culture, and the construction of social reality around tourism.

From the Back Cover

"Nothing short of brilliant."--Lewis Coser

Review Quotes

"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"

"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"

"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"

"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"

About the Author

Dean MacCannell is Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at the University of California, Davis, and the author of Empty Meeting Grounds (1992) and The Time of the Sign (1982).