License to Travel: A Cultural History of the Passport

Price
$19.95
Available In Store
This surprising global history of an indispensable document reveals how the passport has shaped art, thought, and human experience while helping to define the modern world.

In License to Travel, Patrick Bixby takes the reader on a captivating journey from pharaonic Egypt and Han-dynasty China to the passport controls and crowded refugee camps of today. Along the way, you will:
  • Peruse the passports of artists and intellectuals, writers and musicians, ancient messengers and modern migrants.
  • See how these seemingly humble documents implicate us in larger narratives about identity, mobility, citizenship, and state authority.
  • Encounter intimate stories of vulnerability and desire along with vivid examples drawn from world cinema, literature, art, philosophy, and politics.
  • Witness the authority that travel documents exercise over our movements and our emotions as we circulate around the globe.

With unexpected discoveries at every turn, License to Travel exposes the passport as both an instrument of personal freedom and a tool of government surveillance powerful enough to define our very humanity.
License to Travel: A Cultural History of the Passport
$19.95
Available In Store
Description
This surprising global history of an indispensable document reveals how the passport has shaped art, thought, and human experience while helping to define the modern world.

In License to Travel, Patrick Bixby takes the reader on a captivating journey from pharaonic Egypt and Han-dynasty China to the passport controls and crowded refugee camps of today. Along the way, you will:

  • Peruse the passports of artists and intellectuals, writers and musicians, ancient messengers and modern migrants.
  • See how these seemingly humble documents implicate us in larger narratives about identity, mobility, citizenship, and state authority.
  • Encounter intimate stories of vulnerability and desire along with vivid examples drawn from world cinema, literature, art, philosophy, and politics.
  • Witness the authority that travel documents exercise over our movements and our emotions as we circulate around the globe.

With unexpected discoveries at every turn, License to Travel exposes the passport as both an instrument of personal freedom and a tool of government surveillance powerful enough to define our very humanity.
Description
This surprising global history of an indispensable document reveals how the passport has shaped art, thought, and human experience while helping to define the modern world.

In License to Travel, Patrick Bixby takes the reader on a captivating journey from pharaonic Egypt and Han-dynasty China to the passport controls and crowded refugee camps of today. Along the way, you will:

  • Peruse the passports of artists and intellectuals, writers and musicians, ancient messengers and modern migrants.
  • See how these seemingly humble documents implicate us in larger narratives about identity, mobility, citizenship, and state authority.
  • Encounter intimate stories of vulnerability and desire along with vivid examples drawn from world cinema, literature, art, philosophy, and politics.
  • Witness the authority that travel documents exercise over our movements and our emotions as we circulate around the globe.

With unexpected discoveries at every turn, License to Travel exposes the passport as both an instrument of personal freedom and a tool of government surveillance powerful enough to define our very humanity.
ISBN
9780520397897
Publication Date
September 5, 2023
Binding
Paperback
Item Condition
New
Language
English
Ages
0-0
Pages
248
Keywords
History | Modern | 20th Century - General; History | United States | 21st Century; History | World | General; Social Science | Emigration & Immigration; Political Science | Globalization; Political Science | Civics & Citizenship; Law | Emigration & Immigration