Book Description

Now in paperback, an "insightful" (San Francisco Bay Guardian) look at tourism and nostalgia from the bestselling author and art critic. In Lucy R. Lippard's On the Beaten Track, essays on cultural criticism, anthropology, and community activism are interwoven to examine how tourism sites are conceived and represented, and how they transform their surroundings. Called "stimulating" and "valuable" by Newsday, On the Beaten Track is now available in paperback for the first time. With her characteristic breadth of insight and critical eye, Lippard explores the act of being a tourist in one's own home, the role of advertising and photography in defining place, antique shops as populist museums, and the commodification of indigenous cultures. She discusses the political economies of leisure spaces; the tourist's fascination with tragic destinations such as the sites of massacres, nuclear weapons tests, and Holocaust memorials; and our willingness to let national parks and heritage sites define nature and history. Finally, the author that critic Andrew Ross calls "the most sure-footed tour guide you could hope for" surveys how artists are responding to the environmental, cultural, and political issues surrounding contemporary tourism.