Far Out ─ Countercultural Seekers and the Tourist Encounter in Nepal

Far Out charts the history of Western countercultural longing for Nepal that made the country, and Kathmandu in particular, a premier tourist destination in the twentieth century. Anthropologist and historian Mark Liechty describes three distinct phases: the immediate post-war era when the country provided a Raj-like throwback experience for rich foreigners (mainly Americans), Nepal’s emergence as the most exotic outpost of hippie counterculture in the 1960s and early ?70s, and, finally, the Nepali state’s rebranding of itself as an adventure destination from the 1970s on. Liechty is attuned to how the dynamics of mid-twentieth century globalization?the Cold War and shifting international relations, modernization and development ideologies, the rise of consumerist middle classes, increased mobility and the birth of mass tourism, and emerging global youth countercultures?drew Nepal into the web of geopolitical, economic, and sociocultural transformations that shaped the modern world. But Liechty doesn’t want to tell the story of tourism as something that ?just happened” to Nepalis. He shows how Western projections of Nepal as an isolated place inspired creative Nepali enterprises and paradoxically gave locals the opportunity to participate in the highly coveted global economy. The result is a readable cultural history of a place that has been in many ways defined by a (sometimes bizarre) cultural encounter. The author’s lifelong interest in Nepal and his almost twenty-five years of research make his account both sophisticated and empathic?but not without a touch of humor.

Mark Liechty is associate professor of anthropology and history at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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