Reviews
Escapism... is not so much an argument as a tour—sometimes a tour de force—of cultural escapes with exotic stops and unexpected twists and turns. And such a convivial tour guide! Tuan is chatty, engaging, unpretentious and charming.
A reader could hardly ask for a more congenial guide, as Tuan's discussion ranges from Christ's last supper to chimpanzees copulating, from African bushmen barbecuing a turtle to diplomat-author Harold Nicolson bathing in a lake... Through this unusual perspective, Tuan is able to realign things usually considered opposites—'fantasy' and 'reality,' 'travel' and 'home,' 'work' and 'private life'—until they converge in fruitful new combinations... His playful treatment of life's glum realities feels at times as tonic as a leisurely Sunday morning... An original work to be read for both intellectual profit and pleasure.
Writing in a deeply thoughtful style, Tuan, a leading cultural geographer, examines the wonders and atrocities that stem from the human impulse to deny the brutal realities of earthly existence.
Book Details
Preface
Chapter 1. Part / Nature and Culture
Chapter 2. Animality / Its Covers and Transcendence
Chapter 3. People / Disconnectedness and Indifference
Chapter 4. Hell / Imagination's Distortions and
Preface
Chapter 1. Part / Nature and Culture
Chapter 2. Animality / Its Covers and Transcendence
Chapter 3. People / Disconnectedness and Indifference
Chapter 4. Hell / Imagination's Distortions and Limitations
Chapter 5. Heaven / The Real and the Good
Notes
Acknowledgments
Illustration Credits
Index