Far Out
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€39.99
A01=Mark Liechty
adventure
Age Group_Uncategorized
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Author_Mark Liechty
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beatniks
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJF
Category=HBLW
Category=HBLX
Category=KNSG
Category=NHF
COP=United States
counterculture
culture
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
dharma
enlightenment
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
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exoticism
guru
himalayas
hippies
history
hunting
john coapman
kathmandu
Language_English
monks
mountain climbers
mountains
Nepal
new age
nonfiction
nostalgia
PA=Available
power
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
public opinion
raj
redemption
religion
shangri-la
softlaunch
spirituality
tourism
travel
trekking
wisdom
yeti
Product details
- ISBN 9780226428949
- Weight: 624g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 21 Feb 2017
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Westerners have long imagined the Himalayas as the world's last untouched place and repository of redemptive power and wisdom. Beatniks, hippie seekers, spiritual tourists, mountain climbers diverse groups of people have traveled there over the years, searching for their own personal Shangri-La. In Far Out, Mark Liechty traces the Western fantasies that captured the imagination of tourists in the decades after World War II, asking how the idea of Nepal shaped the everyday cross-cultural interactions that it made possible. Emerging from centuries of political isolation but eager to engage the world, Nepalis struggled to make sense of the hordes of exotic, enthusiastic foreigners. They quickly embraced the phenomenon, however, and harnessed it to their own ends by building tourists' fantasies into their national image and crafting Nepal as a premier tourist destination. Liechty describes three distinct phases: the postwar era, when the country provided a Raj-like throwback experience for rich Americans; Nepal's emergence as an exotic outpost of hippie counterculture in the 1960s; and its rebranding into a hip adventure destination, which began in the 1970s and continues today.
He shows how Western projections of Nepal as an isolated place inspired creative enterprises and, paradoxically, allowed locals to participate in the global economy. Based on twenty-five years of research, Far Out blends ethnographic analysis, a lifelong passion for Nepal, and a touch of humor to produce the first comprehensive history of what tourists looked for and found on the road to Kathmandu.
Mark Liechty is associate professor of anthropology and history at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
