Cover of Liechty Mark Liechty: Far Out

Liechty Mark Liechty Far Out

Countercultural Seekers and the Tourist Encounter in Nepal

Price for Eshop: 1357 Kč (€ 54.3)

VAT 0% included

New

E-book delivered electronically online

E-Book information

University of Chicago Press

2017

EPub, PDF
How do I buy e-book?

392

978-0-226-42913-7

0-226-42913-X

Annotation

Westerners have long imagined the Himalayas as the world's last untouched place and a 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.

Ask question

You can ask us about this book and we'll send an answer to your e-mail.