Dimensions
142 x 194 x 24mm
Why do we camp?
What is the perfect campsite?
What is real camping and does it require the wearing of a loincloth?
In the nineteenth century, the pioneers of camping sought the physical and philosophical benefit of a weekend in the wild. Between the wars, progressive men and women pitched tents to get closer to nature and to one another, cooking up a new way of life over the campfire. In response to our own troubled era, camping has returned more popular than ever.
Matthew De Abaitua takes a left-hand trail through the history of camping, discovering radical camping groups such as the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift, the ostentatious car camping trips of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, and the invention of the dome tent by the idealists of the late Sixties. The Art of Camping is also a family's quest for self-improvement, a wry memoir about the gap between the perfect camping trip, and the reality.
If you too hear the call of the campfire, know the hallucinatory beauty of solitude among the pines, and reject the philosophical cop-out of wearing socks with sandals, then pack this book for your next night sleeping under the stars.
