License to Travel: A Cultural History of the Passport

Description

Discover the surprising global history of how the passport has shaped art, thought, and human experience to define the modern world. License to Travel exposes the passport as both an instrument of personal freedom and a tool of government surveillance powerful enough to define our very humanity. Patrick Bixby examines the passports of artists and intellectuals, ancient messengers and modern migrants to reveal how these seemingly humble documents implicate us in larger narratives about identity, mobility, citizenship, and state authority. This concise cultural history: Takes the reader on a captivating journey from pharaonic Egypt and Han-dynasty China to the passport controls and crowded refugee camps of today.Connects intimate stories of vulnerability and desire with vivid examples drawn from world cinema, literature, art, philosophy, and politicsHighlights the control that travel documents have over our bodies as we move around the globe. With unexpected discoveries at every turn, from narrow escapes and new starts, tearful departures and hopeful arrivals, License to Travel shares some of our most memorable experiences involving the passport. Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: “The Most Precious Book I Possess" Part One: A Prehistory of the Passport as We Know It 1. Ancient Bodies, Ancient Citizens 2. Great Sovereigns, Grand Tourists 3. Modern Bodies, Modern Citizens Part Two: The Advent of the Passport as We Know It 4. Modernists and Militants Part Three: The Passport as We Know It 5. Expelled and Stateless 6. Migrants and Marxists 7. Alien and Indigenous Epilogue: Good Passports Bad Passports Notes Index Series