Sultry Climates

By Ian Littlewood

Book Overview

Here, said the reviewer for Salon.com, is a book that is 'lively and accessible and erudite. . . the perfect companion for anyone who wouldn't be cauth dead with an airport paperback-though I wouldn't want to wager which one provides more juice.' Historically, the sexual motives of travel have rarely been spelled out in travel guides and brochures. Sultry Climates is an alternative history of tourism, made up of precisely the details that usually go unmentioned. As Ian Littlewood demonstrates with dazzling elegance and wit, if we want to make sense of the celebrated Grand Tour" of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, it's as important to take account of travelers' visits to Dresden streetwalkers and Venetian courtesans as it is to reckon with their visits to the Picture Gallery and the Doge's Palace. To understand the Victorianpassion for the Mediterranean is to be aware of Greek and Italian attractions that extended far beyond the historical. From Byron in Greece to Isherwood in Germany, from American expatriates on the Left Bank to Orton in Morocco and right up to the present day, what emerges from these experiences is a continuing motif of tourism, previously neglected or ignored, that comes into full view only with the twentieth century's cult of the sun. Suffice it to say that after reading Sultry Climates , you'll never look at tourists in quite the same way again."

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306811553
• ISBN13: 9780306811555
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

The exotic and the erotic.

Why do people travel? For Ian Littlewood, 'the sexual element is vital to tourism' (p.5).His book offers a keen look at (sex) tourism through the ages (from the 17th century till today).He uses therefore mostly the diaries of well-known writers or artists like Boswell, Wilde, Gide, Loti, Forster, Byron, Isherwood, Waugh, Gauguin and others.For those who didn't read these diaries, this book constitutes an excellent documentary base for some aspects (sexual) of the lives of these men.The author shows clearly that women as well as men escaped through travel from their unhappy (matrimonial) or dangerous (homosexuality) home situation, and also that their main goal was 'sex with the young', and sometimes 'with the very young' (paedophilia).I recommend this book because it treats a modern subject, without dodging an often disguised but essential part of it.

The exotic and the erotic.

Why do people travel? For Ian Littlewood, 'the sexual element is vital to tourism' (p.5).His book is mostly based on the diaries of writers and artists like Boswell, Wilde, Gide, Loti, Forster, Byron, Isherwood, Waugh, Gauguin, with at the end a comment on the Club Med.It constitutes a keen look at (sex) tourism through the ages.Since travel began (the British coming over to the continent), the sexual component was an implicit part of the story. The official reason was culture (opening of the mind), but the unofficial one was sexual 'education'. The home comers couldn't disguise it, for they were infected by VD's.Travel reflected and still reflects economic power and 'colonialist' superiority.For the affluent who could afford it, Italy (and also Africa) was the main pleasure ground for women travellers; Paris and the Mediterranean countries (Algeria) for men. Their main goal was 'sex with the young', also the very young (paedophilia).Travel was and is an escape. Now, an escape out of stress. In the former centuries an escape out of the home situation: for women, the subordination; for men, lack of sexual liberty and condemnation of homosexuality.I recommend this book because it treats a modern subject without dodging an often disguised but essential part of it.