Tourists

How the British Went Abroad to Find Themselves

De: Lucy Lethbridge

Narrado por: Lucy Lethbridge

Bloomsbury presents Tourists written and read by Lucy Lethbridge.

*FOYLES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH*
'I really can't recommend this enough – especially if you are going on holiday' Tom Holland
'Delightful ... Lucy Lethbridge has written a glorious romp of a book' Kathryn Hughes, The Mail on Sunday

‘It is the paramount wish of every English heart, ever addicted to vagabondizing, to hasten to the Continent…’

In 1815 the Battle of Waterloo brought to an end the Napoleonic Wars and the European continent opened up once again to British tourists. The nineteenth century was to be an age driven by steam technology, mass-industrialisation and movement, and, in the footsteps of the Grand Tourists a hundred years earlier, the British middle-classes flocked to Europe to see the sights.

In Tourists, the voices of these travellers – puzzled, shocked, delighted and amazed – are brought vividly to life. From the discomfort of the stagecoach to the ‘self-contained pleasure palace’ of the beach resort, Lucy Lethbridge brilliantly examines two centuries of tourists’ experience. Among a range of disparate characters, we meet the commercial titans of Victorian tourism, Albert Smith, Henry Gaze and Thomas Cook, as well as their successor, Vladimir Raitz, the creator of the modern beach holiday.

The growth of popular tourism introduced new markets in guidebooks, souvenirs, cuisine and health cures. It smoothed over class differences but also exacerbated them. It destroyed traditional cultures while at the same time preserving them.

From portable cameras to postcards and suntans, Tourists explores how tourism has reflected changing attitudes to modernity and how, from the grand hotel to the campsite, the foreign holiday exposes deep fears, hopes and even longings for home.

©2022 Lucy Lethbridge (P)2022 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Lucy Lethbridge’s warmth and wit make her the perfect tour guide to the intriguing history of the British abroad." (Lucasta Miller)

"To write well about the attempts of the British to enjoy themselves in that fraught territory ‘abroad’, you need a sense of the ridiculous, an eye for the poignant, the ability to leaven a mass of date with wit. In Tourists, Lucy Lethbridge ticks all the boxes." (Andrew Martin)

"Full of human interest and fresh insights, Tourists offers a wonderfully enjoyable account of one of the defining phenomena of the past two centuries." (David Kynaston)

wonderful, no stone left unturned

The author is thorough, delightful, and intriguing. Her ability to place tourism within the greater sociopolitical context is spot on.