Driven by pleasure-seeking and curiosity, over the past century and a half tourism has evolved from a pastime of the leisured rich to a trillion-dollar mass industry. But tourism is about much more than fun and money, historian Richard White tells SCOPE: looked at the right way, it offers an invaluable view into a society’s relationship with its own past, and with its present identity.
If rampant consumerism is a cultural — not just economic — phenomenon, can a culture be deliberately changed to minimize its effects? Peggy Liu leads China Dream, a project that aims to achieve nothing less with the world’s most populous nation and oldest civilization. SCOPE asks her how she plans to succeed.
Paul Bogard’s scientific, literary, and philosophical account of why the end of night — driven by unremitting and ever-increasing light pollution around the world — should worry us all.
