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A history of modern tourism By Zuelow Eric G. E. . Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan , 2015. Pp. xii + 290. Hardback £55.00, ISBN 978-0-2303-6964-1 ; paperback £19.99, ISBN 978-0-2303-6965-8 .
Reviews
When John Walton implored historians in 1997 to 'take the history of tourism seriously', the existing scholarly literature on the topic certainly warranted his assessment.1Few historians had given a thorough treatment to a topic that was largely seen as a late-twentieth-century mass phenomenon. While there existed some accounts of tourism before 1945, they formed a motley collection of local studies and pastime writings. They certainly did not have the unity and urgency which Walton saw as necessary for such a commercially, politically, and culturally important global topic. Eric Zuelow's wide-ranging new introduction to the history of modern tourism makes abundantly clear just how much has changed in the nineteen years since Walton's appeal. It also reveals how much work remains to be done in this young field of historical research.
The significance of Zuelow's volume should not be understated. As a textbook for students, it will undoubtedly serve as a trustworthy guide to the development of tourism in the modern world. For researchers of tourism's history, it will stand as an indispensable handbook. The book proceeds in a conventional chronological manner that should be familiar to those who study the topic. Beginning with the elite grand tours of Europe by British gentlemen in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Zuelow charts the evolution of a modern tourism 'profoundly removed' (p. 12) from the leisure travel that had existed previously. This tourism was a 'cross-cultural' experience (p. 7) ever more focused on consuming abroad for conspicuous display and status at home (p. 21). While the grand...