Escapism - Tapa dura

"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." -- Francis I. Kane, New York Times Book Review

"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." -- Jeffery Paine, Washington Post Book World

"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." -- Utne Reader

In prehistoric times, our ancestors began building shelters and planting crops in order to escape from nature's harsh realities. Today, we flee urban dangers for the safer, reconfigured world of suburban lawns and parks. According to geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, people have always sought to escape in one way or another, sometimes foolishly, often creatively and ingeniously. Glass-tower cities, suburbs, shopping malls, Disneyland -- all are among the most recent monuments in our efforts to escape the constraints and uncertainties of life -- ultimately, those imposed by nature. "What cultural product," Tuan asks, "is not escape?" In his new book, the capstone of a celebrated career, Tuan shows that escapism is an inescapable component of human thought and culture.