Editorial

Co-Editor’s Note:

Those attending the American Historical Association (A.H.A.) meeting in San Francisco in January 2024 are invited to participate in the session ‘Tourism and History: From Soviets to Space to Anti-Tourism’, sponsored by the Institute for Historical Study, an organisation affiliated with the A.H.A. The session addresses the linkages between history and tourism, expanding our knowledge of the many ways in which tourism has influenced history, ranging from post-World War II Russia to space tourism in the United States to the broader phenomenon of anti-tourism.

In ‘War and Peace: Images of World War II in Early Thaw (mid-1950s) Soviet travelogues’, Alexey Kotelvas, a former graduate student at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences and a rising doctoral candidate at the University of Florida, addresses the post-Stalin ‘thaw’, or easing of Cold War tensions under Khrushchev, and how this was reflected in travel accounts, or travelogues, by Soviet citizens who had toured abroad. He focuses on the accounts of participants in the 1956 European cruise for Soviet tourists on the ship ‘Pobeda’. Although a peaceful tour, memories of the Second World War formed a continual backdrop in the accounts of the tourist participants.

‘Space for Play: Inspiring the Next Generation of STEM Workers at US Space Camp, 1982–1996’, by Emily A. Margolis, Curator of the History of American Women in Aviation, Spaceflight, Astronomy, and Planetary Science for the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, discusses the development of the United States Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, which became a popular destination for tourist families who could ‘play astronaut for a week’. Participants could ‘train’ for spaceflight through a combination of classroom lessons and simulated missions in full-size mock-ups of International Space Station modules and other spacecraft. Her presentation addresses gender inequalities and how they have been addressed over time.

In ‘“Tourists, go home!”: Exploring the history of anti-tourism’, Kristin Semmens, Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Victoria, examines the multi-faceted phenomenon of ‘anti-tourism’ from an historical perspective. Going back to criticisms of Thomas Cook’s package tours in the nineteenth century and moving to current protests against gentrification, Americanization, and consumerism, she addresses slogans such as ‘Tourists, go home!’ that have appeared on neighbourhood walls and on protest banners during the last decade, from Spain to Germany to Italy. Her presentation explores the historical roots of protests ignited when people challenge the environmental, economic, and societal impacts of tourism, and resist being viewed as tourism objects themselves.

Igor Tchoukarine, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Minnesota, and co-author of The History of the European Travel Commission, 1948–2018, (2018), will comment on the presentations.

Chartered by the State of California as a 501(c)3 non-profit, public benefit corporation in 1980, the Institute for Historical Study is a community of independent scholars and members of academic and other institutions promoting the study of history in the broadest sense, united by ‘a devotion to history in its many forms’, as described on its website. Details as to location and time of the session will be published once available on the Institute’s website: https://instituteforhistoricalstudy.org.