Travel as a Political Act
Selected Book Details
- Paperback
- Author: Rick Steves
- Publisher: Nation Books
- Release Date: May 2009
- ISBN-10: 1568584350
- ISBN-13: 9781568584355
- List Price: $16.95
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryTravel connects people with people. It helps us fit more comfortably and compatibly into a shrinking world. And it inspires creative new solutions to persistent problems facing our nation. We can’t understand our world without experiencing it. Traveling as a Political Act helps us take that first step. There’s more to travel than good-value hotels, great art, and tasty cuisine. Americans who “travel as a political act” can have the time of their lives and come home smarter—with a better understanding of the interconnectedness of today’s world and just how our nation fits in. In his new book, acclaimed travel writer Rick Steves explains how to travel more thoughtfully—to any destination. He shares a series of field reports from Europe, Central America, Asia, and the Middle East to show how his travels have shaped his politics and broadened his perspective. www.ricksteves.com |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
A wonderfully unique travel book
Rating:
The Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has a great phrase about how Americans should interact with the rest of the world (I'm paraphrasing a bit): "We have to stop thinking of America solely as an exporter of great ideas and realize that we should be an importer of them as well" (He's a Republican??!!). If there were a thesis statement to this book that wasn't written by Rick Steves, you could not do much better than this, for this is what this book as all about: Learning to travel not just for recreational enjoyment, but intellectual enrichment as well.
The book is broken down into sections that demonstrate how different sections of the world handle socioeconomic situations differently than we do in America. He most certainly is not blind to American advantages, despite what his conservative critics will say. He speaks about how he finds it "disheartening" to see extreme theocracy being embraced in curriculums at Iranian universities, institutions he (rightly) believes should be open to challenging the status quo. He also speaks of how it is far easier to make a better profit owning a small business like his in America, as opposed to the regulatory hurdles of EU nations.
At the same time, he makes it clear that the rest of the world thinks about things globally and constantly interact with each other far more often and effectively than citizens of the U.S. do, and he's absolutely right. Some of it can be explained by American geographic isolation, but also because we are conditioned by many influences to fear or dismiss what we don't immediately know or understand. One of the greatest truisms he offers: "The very people who would most benefit from international travel - those who needlessly fear people and places they don't understand - decide to stay home." Sadly, he's right. The most pro-American, uber-patriotic people I know who constantly assert the US is the best country in the world have never been overseas, and they certainly don't plan to either. Yet they KNOW America is #1 because, well...they want to believe it. Those are the people who Rick Steves' message is intended to reach.
The best part about this book is the fact that it is not a how-to guide. It is not a book that tells you specifically how to "travel as a political act" with step-by-step instructions. Rather, it is a collection of stories and dispatches from the author's experiences that is meant to encourage travelers to make their own memories and experiences and use what they learn when they get back, both the good lessons AND the bad. If you're a seasoned traveler who enjoys learning from other cultures, you'll probably find yourself nodding in agreement constantly. I know I did, for my best memories of traveling in South Africa consist of talking to locals in pubs and other places about the recently disposed (at the time) apartheid system. Hearing the perspectives of people of all races certainly helped me put in perspective how we as Americans deal with national problems and how we can always be learning from successes and failures abroad. These are the lessons that Rick Steves asks us to apply to our lives. It shows how politics has the awesome power to shape the kind of society that we would like to see, and to also be weary of the pitfalls of misuse. The result is a book that is more inspirational than preachy, and it is far more successful and enjoyable because of it.
Thomas Jefferson said travel "...makes Americans less happy, but much wiser." Voltaire wrote that we should "Refuse to be happy on the condition of being ignorant, imbecilic, and insulated." The best use of traveling is to learn and apply, for it would surely do our country well if a broader perspective was achieved because we, and our politics, would be much better for it. Most writers outside the political arena don't dare inject politics into their work, for the understandable reason that those who disagree with their politics will be turned off and they'll lose a good deal of prospective customers. All I can say is, THANK GOODNESS that Rick Steves has the courage to throw that notion out the window.
Every traveler needs to read...
Rating:
Rick Steves shares a perspective on the world that needs to be taught to every civics class and world history class; the world does not look like America everywhere! Here's a book that encourages you to think about the differences and how others see us as well.
This Should Be Required Reading for All School Children
Rating:
I read TRAVEL AS A POLITICAL ACT (on Kindle) and was most impressed with the entire presentation of people as people. When I travel, I like to get off the beaten path. This summer I went on a Med cruise with my husband and another couple. It was agreed that we would book an excursion in each port to get a flavor of the place.
I found I got a much better flavor of the places in this book than I did on the tours. I would very much like to travel to some of the world's hot spots. When I express a desire to visit the Middle East or South America, I am met with comments like "are you crazy" and a lot of eye rolling.
Rick Steves has bolstered my estimate that given the chance, all people can and will get along. I came away from reading TRAVEL AS A POLITICAL ACT thinking that it could benefit children by allowing them to view a broader perspective than that which they get at home or in school.
Traveling with eyes and heart and mind wide open
Rating:
A message implicit in the Rick Steves travel philosophy behind his ultra-useful Europe travel guides is at the center of this wonderful, unique book: your responsibilities as a citizen travel with you when you leave your country. Or" "Active, responsible citizenship: don't leave home (or return) without it." Traveling with your eyes open, and with an open mind and open heart, means that you will experience how people in other places do things differently--and difference is not bad. The more we learn about others, the more we learn about ourselves, often lessons that might be applied back home to improve our community, nation, planet.
The focus throughout the book is on people--ordinary (though often extraordinary) people Steves met while traveling--and how they live their lives. Drawn from Steves' extensive travels over forty years, the easily-readable small volume is chock full of examples of how people in Europe (and Morocco, Turkey, El Salvador and Iran) do things differently, from mailboxes designed to deter junk mail to approaches to soft drug use. Steves' reflections on these differences helped me understand the rationale behind them. The powerful final chapter helped me see how I might share good ideas from my travels when I return home, and contribute to the betterment of all.
To get the most out of this book requires some background knowledge of what's happening in the world (at the level of occasional TV news watching), but any reader will learn a great deal about how the world works from reading this. And you don't need to be a traveler to gain from it, but almost certainly you will be more inspired to travel--and to learn and contribute--after reading it.
Great purpose for traveling.
Rating:
The main idea and the message to the audience is wonderful.
Yes, I love to travel and I travel to learn the cultures NOT to be a tourist in a bubble. :)
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