by Pico Iyer
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Product Description
From the acclaimed author of Video Nights in Kathmandu comes this intriguing new book that deciphers the cultural ramifications of globalization and the rising tide of worldwide displacement.
Beginning in Los Angeles International Airport, where town life?shops, services, sociability?is available without a town, Pico Iyer takes us on a tour of the transnational village our world has become. From Hong Kong, where people actually live in self-contained hotels, to Atlanta's Olympic Village, which seems to inadvertently commemorate a sort of corporate universalism, to Japan, where in the midst of alien surfaces his apartment building is called "The Memphis," Iyer ponders what the word "home" can possibly mean in a world whose face is blurred by its cultural fusion and its alarmingly rapid rate of change.
Amazon.com Review
Pico Iyer's book of essays about international locales contends that the modern world-scurrying citizen, pushed by business demands or political migrations, can easily lose both roots and sense of home. Airports have morphed into cities where scores of languages are spoken, thousands work, and millions travel through mazed villages of McDonalds, massage parlors, and self-help groups that twist along for miles; the Dallas-Fort Worth airport alone grabs more space than Manhattan. And city life is no different: Iyer's apartment building also houses an immigration office, banks, four cinemas, dozens of restaurants and nearly 100 boutiques; the technologically plugged-in businessman with whom he stays has five phones across the world, a dozen international bank accounts, and travels more than a pilot. Whether in Toronto--where in larger schools nearly 80 languages may be heard--London, or at the Olympics in Atlanta, Iyer witnesses the overlapping of hundreds of heterogeneous cultures, often pushed by corporate concerns toward commercial homogeneity and powered by technology that offers an office in the sky. The picture painted by Iyer--himself a confused and well-traveled multicultural citizen--is extreme, sci-fi, and futuristic even though set in the present: a global village turned spinning metropolis, with so many fragments set loose in its gyrations that it threatens to explode the minds of its residents. But even this shell-shocked world traveler finds peace, concluding that a simpler life may be a richer one and that home is simply where the frazzled mind decides it will be. In an era when new frontiers open monthly, when frequent flyer miles serve as currency, and constant change may be a lifestyle demand, Iyer's frantic words and dizzying images may prove as prophetic as Alvin Toffler's Future Shock. --Melissa Rossi
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 No Global Sleuth, 2007-11-15
If you have previously enjoyed some of Pico Iyer's travel writing, stay away from this book. It's not a book about seeing the actual world as it is, it's a book about metropolis city centres, airports and the kind of people who spend their lives in metropolis city centres and airports.
With Pico's background of being born in Britain and brought up by Indian parents, being schooled in Britain and the US, working all over the world and living in Japan, there's no wonder he doesn't really feel at home anywhere. That's not to say this is something new that has much to do with the ongoing globalization. Exactly the same thing has been happening for ages, with people moving from countryside villages and farms into the cities. Not feeling quite at home there, they may go back to their villages just to discover that they don't really belong there either anymore. Pico seems to believe that he is one of a new kind of people who experience a lack of home, but I just don't buy it.
Yes, we're surrounded by products and food from all over the world, as opposed to earlier. But that doesn't change who we are. And for a huge proportion of the planet's population, globalization is still just a meaningless word.
The first chapter is all you have to read. The rest of the book is just the same message repeated. And it's not a particularly important message.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Fun Topic , 2005-12-27
A fun topic with only partial in depth exploration. A change from Pico Iyers other true travel stories, this book explores the actual travler themself. For anyone who has spend time actually living in other cultures, the book will hit home on some tangent. Fun read but not as good as some of Pico Iyer's other reads.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 A little too much?, 2003-02-22
Iyer is an entertaining writer. That's why I read him. This book, although not excellent, is good (I like "The Lady and the Monk" better though). I really enjoyed the last chapter of the book about his experiences as a foreigner in Japan. I could relate because I too, lived as a foreigner in Japan. But the remainder of the book came across to me as a little bit too much. In other words - exaggerated and overdone. But this is not a worthless book. It's merit comes in remembering that these are the author's ideas and experiences - not everyone else's.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
 Smart, humane , edgy and I couldn't stop reading, 2002-07-24
I love this book. I'm sending it to all my relatives who, like the author, are modern post-ethnics with no true sense of ethnic allegiance. His insights are quite droll: a person with no deep national loyalty may be staunchly loyal to one airline. And some huge portion of all airmiles are earned on the ground! He captures the absurd, the sad, the hopeful aspects of being a bourgeois post-ethnic in today's climate. I take my hat off to this man for writing a book that can be said to speak for an entire generation. That may sound audacious but those are the feelings he inspires in one reader! The book is not only about travel. You can be a reluctant traveller (like me) and still enjoy his narrative. The great thing about this book -- it can be read out of order. I read the Toronto chapter first. I read the Empire chapter next. I read the first chapter last. It works. This is a book I will re-read. It has some errors, which other reviews here have rightly pointed out, but in total it's a...good read and its insights are substantial.
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
Struck by Disconnect - Customer v. Editorial Reviews, 2001-12-06
I had already begun reading this book (have read only a/b the first 50 pages), when I logged on to Amazon, with a view to e-mailing a friend a link to the book. Started browsing through the editorial and customer reviews -- all the editorial reviews v. positive, but majority of the customer reviews quite negative. My bias is gen. towards the customers (and esp. in this case, since they seem to be more actual travellers, vs. editors who merely review travel writing). Yet, and I find this odd, I actually like what I've read so far (caveat: haven't read it all), though I would agree, to a degree, with some of the negative comments. Perhaps it's because I can relate. Work in finance. Born & raised in Bombay, studied in the US, lived in China learning Mandarin, now in Toronto and a soon-to-be Canadian citizen. No family, no strong ties to anywhere. Perhaps some those readers who dislike the book can't relate. Some of the comments I agree with. There is repetition. Tone can sometimes be "whiny", as a few readers note. Iyer should pick up some language skills - I can feel at ease in Bombay or Beijing in large part because I have speak both Hindi and Mandarin. Other criticisms I don't agree with. E.g., some have commented that Iyer's "global soul" relates to a v. small number of people. Well, that's the going-in position. The book is made of observations about being raised, living and working in multiple cultures/geographies. By definition, it's not going to be relevant for most of the 6 bn + people on the planet. They're not the target audience.
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