Escapism

In prehistoric times our ancestors began building shelters and planting crops in order to escape from nature''s harsh realities. Today we flee urban dangers for the safer reconfigured world of suburban lawns and parks. According to geographer Yi-Fu Tuan people have always sought to escape in one way or another sometimes foolishly often creatively and ingeniously. Glass-tower cities suburbs shopping malls Disneyland-all are among the most recent monuments in our efforts to escape the constraints and uncertainties of life-ultimately those imposed by nature. What cultural product Tuan asks is not escape? In his new book the capstone of a celebrated career Tuan shows that escapism is an inescapable component of human thought and culture.