This book is about the new politics of leisure and pleasure - the values, practices, struggles and contradictions that now characterize the social worlds of rambling, drinking, tourism, sex, watching TV, gambling, using the internet, reading, comedy, sport, popular music and censorship.

The tourism and leisure industries are big business. Opportunities for leisure and tourism have escalated as disposable income, technology, travel and education have become increasingly available in recent times. However, this trend has been juxtaposed with an increase in crime, particularly since the early the 1950s. Acquisitive crimes have been facilitated with the development of more portable and valuable commodities; some activities, such as drink driving and disorder, have now been socially defined as crimes and are more readily identified through new technology such as the increasing use of CCTV. The Problem of Pleasure covers them all. The purpose of this book is to inform and enlighten a range of readers, whose interests may be academic or commercial on possible crime events and modus operandi of criminals. The book has a global perspective, bringing together leading academics from the UK, the US, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand who examine several aspects of leisure that are vulnerable to crime, from illegal hunting to street racing, as well as the impact of crime upon tourists and the tourism industry. This book will be a key text for students of tourism and leisure as well as criminology and sociology; people working in the tourism and recreation industry; policy makers and the police.

This exploration of an unexpected aspect of New Zealand social history examines the human body at leisure in the years 1900&–1960. This book studies bodybuilding, especially the famous strongman Eugen Sandow; growing ideas about fitness, health, and exercise; the rise of beauty contests; the culture of the beach and the pool; nudism; and children's play and the appearance of playgrounds. The central aim is to explore how bodies—men's, women's and children's—were shaped and displayed through various leisure pursuits in 20th-century New Zealand.

This book deals with leisure, pleasure and healing at the spas in the eastern Mediterranean basin since the biblical era throughout the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and early Muslim periods focusing on daily life, healing cults, medical recommendations and treatments at the curative spas.

In today's crazily busy world the importance of making time for leisure is more vital than ever. Yet so many of us lack a talent for it. We are working longer hours, consuming more than ever before; technology erodes the work-life balance further; increasingly, people feel that only work gives existence meaning. In a world where time is money, what is the value of walking without purpose, socialising without networking, nesting when we could be on our laptops? Robert Dessaix shows, in this thoughtful and witty book, how taking leisure seriously givesus back our freedom - to enjoy life, to revel in it, in fact; to deepen our sense of who we are as human beings. He explains how we can reclaim our right to 'rest well', and to loaf, groom, nest and play, as he looks at leisure from many angles: reading, walking, travelling, learning languages, taking siestas and simply doing nothing. The result is a terrifically lively and engaging conversation that reminds us that at leisure we are at our most intensely and pleasurably human.

Jan Huizinga and Roger Caillois have already taught us to realize how important games and play have been for pre-modern civilization. Recent research has begun to acknowledge the fundamental importance of these aspects in cultural, religious, philosophical, and literary terms. This volume expands on the traditional approach still very much focused on the materiality of game (toys, cards, dice, falcons, dolls, etc.) and acknowledges that game constituted also a form of coming to terms with human existence in an unstable and volatile world determined by universal randomness and fortune. Whether considering blessings or horse fighting, falconry or card games, playing with dice or dolls, we can gain a much deeper understanding of medieval and early modern society when we consider how people pursued pleasure and how they structured their leisure time. The contributions examine a wide gamut of approaches to pleasure, considering health issues, eroticism, tournaments, playing music, reading and listening, drinking alcohol, gambling and throwing dice. This large issue was also relevant, of course, in non-Christian societies, and constitutes a critical concern both for the past and the present because we are all homines ludentes.

In the age of Oprah, Dr. Phil, and countless other self-help disciplinarians, indulging in any kind of pleasurable pastime is on the brink of extinction. But it's not too late to revive those lost pleasures that make life worth living. The Hedonism Handbook can help put the three-martini lunch, the baguette with real butter, the deep tan, the unfiltered cigarette, or the simple act of lying in a hammock under the stars back within our grasp. A tongue-in-cheek, satirical guide to the "good" life, The Hedonism Handbook will help us reclaim it all.With his characteristic wit, author Michael Flocker combines humorous reviews of historical excesses, suggestions for everyday indulgences, lists of hedonistic icons with famous quotes and earnest warnings about the perils of structured living. Made up of ten worldly wise chapters arranged to form a journey for the reader-a path from the straight-and-narrow into wide-open fields of frivolity -- The Hedonism Handbook will help readers master the lost arts of leisure and pleasure. It provides an entertaining, yet (if you're not careful), life-changing read.