The Triumph of a Utopia

We’re only talking about work – and unemployment – although it takes up so little of our lives! Just 10 to 12% of a lifetime, versus 40% in 1936. We are not liberated from work – all the more so when work can be so enriching – but we have learned to live with it, to limit it. Jean Viard shows the forces at work in this transformation – the invention of pre-vacation vacations, the discovery of travel, leisure, getting away from it all, nature.
Vacations and travel are no longer something “alongside” our lives but a driver of our plans and desires. Without them we are excluded from society and, conversely, it is tourist areas that are growing fastest demographically and economically. A fascinating historical and philosophical narrative that makes the reader rethink their own idea of life.