Momentous mobilities : anthropological musings on the meaning of travel, by Noel B. Salazar [Book review]

Abstract

At the end of his travelogue Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain warns his readers of the health risks of mobility. ‘Travel’, he writes, ‘is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness’. Besides, ‘[b]road, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime’. While a more optimistic account of the momentousness of travel can scarcely be found, Noel B. Salazar has come up with a version that is readable, scholarly and thought-provoking. [excerpt]