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So the treadmill requires far more economic and ecological interconnection that does taking a walk, but it makes far fewer experiential connections." - p.

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. One lives in the whole world rather than in interiors built up against it." - p.9"The new treadmills have two-horsepower engines. On foot evertything stays connected, for while walking one occupies the spaces between those interiors in the same way one occupies those interiors. Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors - home, car, gym, office, shops - disconnected from each other. 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. Her voice appears throughout the text as one of nagging disapproval and it hampers my enjoyment of this book. 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. The last chapter is an interesting contrast of Las Vegas, a notoriously unfriendly city to walkers, developing a pedestrian core. 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. It was not quite what I expected as Solnit takes a philosophical and metaphysical approach to the concept of walking. I like walking and a history of walking intrigued me. Solnit argues for the necessity of preserving the time and space in which to walk in our ever more car-dependent and accelerated world.

She profiles some of the most significant walkers in history and fiction-from Wordsworth to Gary Snyder, from Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennet to Andre Breton's Nadja-finding a profound relationship between walking and thinking and walking and culture. Arguing that the history of walking includes walking for pleasure as well as for political, aesthetic, and social meaning, Solnit focuses on the walkers whose everyday and extreme acts have shaped our culture, from philosophers to poets to mountaineers.

A passionate, thought-provoking exploration of walking as a political and cultural activity, from the author of Orwell's Rosesĭrawing together many histories-of anatomical evolution and city design, of treadmills and labyrinths, of walking clubs and sexual mores-Rebecca Solnit creates a fascinating portrait of the range of possibilities presented by walking.