Venice, the Tourist Maze

Venice, the Tourist Maze is a popular history of the tragic, at times comic, impact of mass tourism on Venice. The outlook for Venice as a living city seems bleak, but the story is fascinating. Davis and Marvin draw on everything from Baedekers to the local papers and contemporary interviews to examine the effect of this flood of people on urban experience and the delicate fabric of the city, depicting at best an aestheticized museum city, at worst a degraded theme park. In effect, the authors argue, Venice survives as a surreal image of itself. This is a fascinating and well-written book.-Carol Lansing, author of Power & Purity: Cathar Heresy in Medieval ItalyAnyone inclined to pick up this book will experience over and over in the course of reading it shivers of intellectual play. For some, half the stimulation comes with the dismantling of a worn-out legend: Venice, the Most Romantic City in the World. For others, it will come while musing on the vivid contradictions revealing that what is good for Venice in the short term-revenue from tourism-is killing the city in the ever nearer long term. The authors may unwittingly encourage even more tourists to go to Venice for the most post-modern of reasons: to observe tourists observing the most touristed city in the world. Venice, The Tourist Maze is engrossing, amusing, fascinating, and troubling.-Sally McKee, author of Uncommon Dominion, Venetian Crete and the Myth of Ethnic Purity