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On Holiday: A History of Vacationing (California Studies in Critical Human Geography)

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There is an old advertisement promoting a California vacation that informs us that `Life is Better in California'! Orvar Löfgren has written a book that both celebrates and critically assesses such statements, in a compelling blend of scholarly insight, historical research, and personal narrative. On Holiday: A History of Vacationing is a rare work that makes for enjoyable reading in the office-or on the beach. Löfgren, who teaches at the University of Lund in Sweden, combines his personal expertise and interests with a rigorous eye for detail to build a fascinating account of tourism as an industry as well as the personal experience of vacationing. He adroitly balances insights from his native land of Sweden, the United States, and the rest of Europe with his research on tourism as a global industry. His book covers tourism as well as travel, images, brand names, destination marketing and relates them to social movements, such as labor, leisure, and lifestyle. A well-researched collection of illustrations and photographs add to the book's appeal.

On Holiday's themes revolve around issues of work vs. leisure, labor vs. rest, home vs. away; tourist vs. host-yet its strength lies in focusing on the everyday life of vacations rather than attempting to build a grand theory of leisure. Löfgren builds from his own history of vacationing-without being esoteric or idiosyncratic-in developing a way of thinking about tourism that is useful for marketing scholars. He shows how the industry influenced and was affected by broad cultural patterns. His work suggests that tourism-and how consumers experience vacations-is central to understanding the global economy.

Readers will find this book much like a good vacation-a chance to reflect, meet new people, getaway from the usual, and wind up refreshed with new interests and directions. For much like a well developed research program, "a strange and often insatiable longing for transcendence gives tourism an element of secular religion, a quest for fulfillment waiting out there somewhere-in the elsewherelands" (p. 282).