cover image Tourism Is History

Tourism Is History

Feifer, Maxine Feifer. Stein and Day, $19.95 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-8128-3087-3

Third in the publisher's series of social histories (Sex in History; Food in History, this light, entertaining volume considers tourism at eight different periods. The ancient Romans journeyed to Greece, Troy and Egypt; though tourism was in eclipse during most of the Middle Ages, pilgrimages to the Holy Land became a mass phenomenon in the 13th and 14th centuries. The Renaissance saw wealthy Britons traveling to Italy in search of manners, and by the 18th century the Grand Tour of France, Austria, Germany and Italy had become de rigueur for cultivated Britons. The Romantics traveled in search of emotional highs, and the Victorians to learn; tourism became a business in their era. The Belle Epoque was the last gasp for the incredibly rich, who flocked to the Riviera, and the postWorld War II period brought the modern-day explosion in sightseeing. Illustrations. (March)