Wanderlust : A History of Walking – Rebecca Solnit

Softback

352 pages

Granta

ISBN: 9781783787357

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, Wanderlust takes us on an unforgettable journey and shows how walking can affect the body, the imagination, and the world around us.