Wanderlust; a History of Walking (2000)

I like walking and a history of walking intrigued me. It was not quite what I expected as Solnit takes a philosophical and metaphysical approach to the concept of walking. The book includes ruminations on the biology of walking, pilgrimages, famed walkers like Peace Pilgrim, meditative walking, poets who walk (Wordsworth), walking clubs, hiking, climbing, walking in the city and the affects of sexual discrimination and racism on walkers, among many other topics. The last chapter is an interesting contrast of Las Vegas, a notoriously unfriendly city to walkers, developing a pedestrian core. Solnit insisted that her own story be part of the history by necessity, but I wish she hadn't as she comes across as preachy and didactic. Her voice appears throughout the text as one of nagging disapproval and it hampers my enjoyment of this book.

Favorite Passages:
"We talked about the more stately sense of time one has afoot and on public transit, where things must be planned and scheduled beforehand, rather than rushed through at the last minute,and about the sense of place that can only be gained on foot. Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors -- home, car, gym, office, shops -- disconnected from each other. On foot evertything stays connected, for while walking one occupies the spaces between those interiors in the same way one occupies those interiors. One lives in the whole world rather than in interiors built up against it." - p.9

"The new treadmills have two-horsepower engines. Once, a person might have hitched two horses to a carriage to go out into the world without walking; now she might plug in a two-horsepower motor to walk without going out into the world. ... So the treadmill requires far more economic and ecological interconnection that does taking a walk, but it makes far fewer experiential connections." - p. 265
Recommended books: The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places by John R. Stilgoe, Lights Out for the Territory by Iain Sinclair and Snowshoeing Through Sewers: Adventures in New York City, New Jersey, and Philadelphia by Michael Aaron Rockland ( )

A good mixture of the personal, a review of literature on the subject of walking and analysis. The chapter based approached means you can skip chapters you are not interested in, although some of them surprise you, so may be worth persevering with. For me the discussion about feminism and walking was particularly enjoyable and interesting. ( )

After some early meandering, Solnit hits upon a "walking's greatest hits" kind of approach and takes us through the effects of walking on the human anatomy, the Wordsworthian ramble, the walk in Classical philosophy, the 19th-century mania for alpinism with its superheroes and the various politics of the clubs it inspired in the Teutonic and Anglo worlds, distance walking as extreme sport and site of self-investigation, women's walking as threat and patriarchy-regulated activity, walking as revolutionary activity, walking as space of dissent, walking as reclaimation of public space for the public and the tension with the urban walk as process of consumption, walking as blow against the tyranny of property. The death of walking, espied through the Las Vegas strip.


Lots of good thinking, lots of fun trivia. A little bit too much airy abstraction, when surely just telling stories is the point of this thing, but enjoyable overall. ( )

Walking > History/Hiking > History/Voyages And Travels

A review of the relationship between walking and thinking, and walking and culture. At times interesting, the topics meander between personal essay, philosophy, city design, literary criticism, and politics. The type of book you can dip into for a chapter or two. ( )