The Accelerated Sublime
Landscape, Tourism and Identity

Over the past 200 years, technology has enabled tourists to visit everywhere on the globe, resulting in locations being commodified into "products" and national identity constructs. Presenting a historical narrative, this study examines landscape consumption and the technologies that shape it.

Over the past two hundred years, transportation technology has enabled tourists to visit nearly any place on the entire globe. Nations compete for tourists by holding out promises of previously unattainable excitement. As a result, locations and landscapes once considered sublime are becoming increasingly commodified into both "products" and elements of national identity constructs. This study combines historical narrative with an examination of this consumption of landscape and the technologies that both shape and reflect it.

-- Preface -- Consuming Landscape -- Stillness -- Activating Sublime Landscape -- The Horizontal Sublime, the Inverted Sublime -- Getting There Quicker -- Accelerating the Documentation -- The Accelerating Biography of the Tourist -- Tourists as Talented Consumers -- Promoting Nations -- Accelerating Landscape, Tourism and Identity