Long regarded as a classic, The Tourist is an examination of the phenomenon of tourism through a social theory lens that encompasses discussions of authenticity, high and low culture, and the construction of social reality. It brings the concerns of social science to an analysis of travel and sightseeing in the postindustrial age, during which the middle class acquired leisure time for international travel. This edition includes a new foreword by Lucy R. Lippard and a new afterword by the author.

Dean MacCannell is Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at the University of California, Davis, and the author of Empty Meeting Grounds (1992) and The Time of the Sign (1982).

"Nothing short of brilliant."—Lewis Coser