Wanderlust: A History of Walking - Softcover

Solnit, Rebecca

Softcover

ISBN 10: 178378735X ISBN 13: 9781783787357

Publisher: Granta Books, 2022

Synopsis

'Radical, humane, witty' Alain de Botton
'Magisterial' Will Self, Guardian

Explore historical, political and philosophical paths traced by walkers in this profound and diverting modern classic.


What does it mean to be out walking in the world, whether in a landscape or a metropolis, on a pilgrimage or a protest march? In this first general history of walking, Rebecca Solnit draws together numerous stories to create a new way of looking at one of humanity's most fundamental and expressive acts.

Arguing that walking as history means walking for pleasure and for political, aesthetic, and social meaning, Solnit homes in on the walkers whose everyday and extreme acts have shaped our culture, from the philosophers of ancient Greece to the poets of the Romantic Age, from the perambulations of the Surrealists to the ascents of mountaineers.

With profiles of some of the most significant walkers in history and fiction - from Wordsworth to Gary Snyder, from Rousseau to Argentina's Mother of the Plaza de Mayo, from Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennet to Andre Breton's Nadja - Wanderlust takes us on an unforgettable journey and shows how walking can affect the body, the imagination, and the world around us.

'One of those rare, quirky, rather lovable books that makes you look anew at something so familiar ... Solnit winningly traces the shifting cultural significance of putting one foot in front of another' Daily Telegraph

About this title

About the Author

REBECCA SOLNIT is the author of more than twenty books, including Orwell's Roses, which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, Recollections of My Non-Existence, which was longlisted for the 2021 Orwell Prize for Political Writing and shortlisted for the James Tait Black Award, The Faraway Nearby, Wanderlust, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, River of Shadows and A Paradise Built in Hell. She is also the author of Men Explain Things to Me and many essays on feminism, activism, social change, hope, and the climate crisis. She writes regularly for the Guardian, the London Review of Books and the Los Angeles Times. She lives in San Francisco.

From the Back Cover

What does it mean to be out walking in the world? From pilgrimages to protest marches, mountaineering to meandering, this modern classic weaves together numerous histories to trace a range of possibilities for this most basic act. Touching on the philosophers of Ancient Greece, the Romantic poets, Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennett, Andre Breton's Nadja, and more, Rebecca Solnit considers what forms of pleasure and freedom walkers have sought at different times. Profound and provocative, Wanderlust invites us to look afresh at the rich, varied, often radical interplay of the body, the imagination, and the world when walking.

Edition details

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 178378735X
• ISBN 13: 9781783787357
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352