"The rigid distinction between romantic world travelers and a locally based, sedentary population is rapidly being erased. Cities are no longer waiting for the arrival of the tourist -- they too are also starting to join global circulation, to reproduce themselves on a world scale and to expand in all directions. As they do so,...

"A life spent in transit like this is bound up with equal degrees of hope and fear. On the one hand, artists are now given the possibility of evading the pressure of prevailing local tastes in a relatively painless way. Thanks to modern means of communication they can seek out like-minded associates from all over...

"According to Kant sublimity lies not in 'anything in nature' but in the 'capacity we have within us' to judge and enjoy without fear the very things that threaten us. Hence the subject of Kant's infinite ideas of reason is the tourist who repeatedly embarks on journeys in search of the extraordinary of enormity and...