Souvenir: Una storia culturale

Object Lessons

by Rolf Potts

Souvenir è una storia culturale degli oggetti che raccogliamo, conserviamo e talvolta collezioniamo come ricordo dei nostri dai vasi di ceramica raffiguranti regine tolemaiche acquistati ad Alessandria d’Egitto nel II secolo a.C. alle pacchiane riproduzioni su scala industriale della Tour Eiffel, Rolf Potts ci mostra come ogni souvenir custodisca un racconto del mondo. Quasi tutti teniamo da qualche parte – sui mobili del salotto, attaccati al frigorifero, appesi allo specchietto della macchina – degli ogget ti che abbiamo riportato da una vacanza, dal la luna di miele o semplicemente da una gita fuori porta. Sono oggetti molto diversi tra loro per dimensioni e materiale, ma accomunati dal la capacità di farci rivivere le memorie di quel viaggio. Souvenir ci rivela come questa pratica non appartenga esclusivamente alla contemporaneità, ma sia un’espressione dell’umano che attraversa i luoghi e le dal terriccio che i pellegrini riportavano a casa dalla Terra Santa alle macabre teste miniaturizzate dell’Amazzonia coloniale, dall’esplosione del mercato delle cartoline a inizio Novecento ai cucchiaini da collezione in vendita nei musei americani oggi, Potts ci illustra il valore personale forte e duraturo che attribuiamo da sempre ai souvenir. Questo libro ci apre gli occhi su come i «ricordini» siano tutt’altro che qualcosa di effimero e legato al turismo di massa, ma possano di ventare per ognuno di noi tappe di una mappa interiore. Perché, come afferma lo stesso Potts, «se acquistiamo un souvenir non è per dare una valutazione del mondo, ma per raccontarci»; per rammentare a noi stessi e agli altri chi siamo stati e chi saremo poi.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, History, Essays

160 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 4, 2024

About the author

Rolf Potts has reported from more than sixty countries for the likes of National Geographic Traveler, the New York Times Magazine, Slate.com, Conde Nast Traveler, Outside, The Believer, The Guardian (U.K.), National Public Radio, and the Travel Channel. A veteran travel columnist for the likes of Salon.com and World Hum, his adventures have taken him across six continents, and include piloting a fishing boat 900 miles down the Laotian Mekong, hitchhiking across Eastern Europe, traversing Israel on foot, bicycling across Burma, and driving a Land Rover from Sunnyvale, California to Ushuaia, Argentina.

-from rolfpotts.com

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've never read any of the Object Lessons series from Bloomsbury Publishing, you may not understand the wonderfulness of this book. Every book examines the history and cultural significance of an ubiquitous, everyday item in 100-ish pages. Every once in a while you'll read one that will answer the exact questions that have been perplexing you about that item. For me, Souvenir was that book.

Souvenirs have been on my mind lately. Cleaning out the belongings of a deceased loved one will make you question a lot of things. The struggle for me was that there were so many things that I knew had significance to my dad - rocks, pine cones, books of matches, hotel soaps from around the world. These were the biggest struggle because I knew that they meant something to him. Each individual item was a moment in time in his life, a memory. In addition to those types of souvenirs, he also had pretty much every gift ever given to him. By the time I walked away, I was emotionally spent from all of the "priceless" nicknacks, and exhausted by all of the mass-produced keychains, magnets, and tchochkes that were given to him over the years. The mass-produced trinkets were more annoying because - how many keychains does one person need? They didn't even have keys on them! They were just souvenir keychains of places that he didn't visit. I know that because the hotel soaps, brochures, and matchbooks were the treasures he brought back from travel. The other stuff were mostly gifts, and yes - some of them were even from me.

It's a curious thing, this accumulation of trinkets that we all experience. I found this book interesting and also somehow comforting, as the author, Rolf Potts, examines the history of this phenomenon. He gives some of the cultural history of the taking of personal souvenirs; and in some cultures, the obligation of bringing back souvenirs for someone else; as well as the curious practice in some places that depend on tourist economy, of creating products and experiences that seem authentic to tourists, but in reality may have little to no significance in the region. The chapters break down as follows:

1. Introduction: An embarrassment of Eiffel Towers
2. Souvenirs in the age of pilgrimate
3. Souvenirs in the age of Enlightenment
Interlude: Museums of the personal
4. Souvenirs in the age of mechanical reproduction
5. Souvenirs and human suffering
6. Souvenirs and (the complicated notion of) authenticity
7. Souvenirs, memory, and the shortness of life

That chapter 5 was a rough one for me. Specifically the stuff about the taking of body parts and human remains as souvenirs - from a battlefield or a lynching, for example. The history of souvenirs takes a dark, dark turn in chapter five. It wasn't easy to read, but it's definitely relevant to the ugly reality of this particular Object Lesson.

I really appreciated this book because it touched on all of the things that perplex me the most, and even mentioned the author's personal experience with the souvenirs of a deceased family member. If you've ever found yourself pondering, "Who decided we need this stuff?", when at a gift shop, you may find some enlightenment between the pages here.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for providing me with access to an advance copy for review. The copy I read was an uncorrected proof, but the list of chapters was verified on the Bloomsbury website for this title.

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a nice idea to write a history of souvenir collecting as it’s a reasonably interesting subject. Unfortunately, however, I didn’t feel there was much originality in this short essay and didn’t learn much that was new to me. Although there are occasional attempts at humour, and clearly the author has researched the subject quite well, there wasn’t enough to lift this from average to good.

With thanks to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for a review copy.

[Denise Cosentino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un saggio molto carino e gradevole sulla concezione del souvenir in ottica storica e socioantropologica.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ownership of things is something important to toddlerhood. Toddlers develop a sense of control over their environment by managing their possessions. Picking up beautiful objects, interesting items, exotic objects is universal. And then we have travel. Potts traces souvenirs back four thousand years but they're probably older. Picking up something interest when you go somewhere else, to show to others or just to have, why wouldn't people always have been doing that? Potts is not a historian but he finds ancient travelers posing for sketches in front of the Parthenon and buying cheap pots with pictures of Ptolemaic queens in Alexandria. His chapter on medieval pilgrimage badges doesn't go hard enough into their ubiquity and collectability. His chapter on the Enlightenment and the increase in trips to secular sites and the concurrent ruining of those sites by people, like Adams and Jefferson, plucking off little bits of those sites to bring home to their collections, is pretty good. Then things really get going. Middle class travel and mass-produced souvenirs, as a way to stop people from chipping hunks of wood out of the baseboards at Mount Vernon and also because gift shops are lucrative, are a conundrum of authenticity, inherent meaning, ascribed meaning, intent and representation of place. An abundance of Eiffel Tower keychains from China over anything made in France. A local ethnic handicraft that's said to be co-opted by global tourism because the artisans are making handicrafts for sale. Wholesalers' keychain templates that can have any location inscribed on them. People who say, "I'm a traveler, not a tourist." Who Potts wanted to be when he started collecting Asian theater masks. How do souvenirs signify a sense of place to the purchaser, or the gift receiver, or to the people who curate gift shops? There is definitely a wealth of entertaining studies on tourism and souvenirs in the sources, and Souvenir is a great introduction.

Potts explains a mass-produced boomerang with kangaroos on it and some tourist-market Australian dot paintings on his wall as a memento of his trip to Australia, a signifier of the larger trip to Asia he was on, when he had been to Asia often enough that he didn't need more souvenirs, and a time in his life when he had just bought his first house and was proud to have walls. All these meanings are encompassed in objects that are authentic to perceptions of Australia that he had before he went to Australia, not made by Australians, but presented as representing Australia in Australia.

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Rolf Potts' Souvenir whilst on holiday, as it seemed a fitting tome to absorb whilst travelling. I have enjoyed the couple of books from the Object Lessons collection which I have read thus far, and I was quite looking forward to this one.

In a way, Potts' essay is a souvenir guidebook of sorts, not a rundown of which items to collect, or where to get them from; rather, it is an exploration of why we seek out such objects as mementoes when we travel, what they have represented to travellers in past ages, and how we use them to narrate our lives. The interesting history of souvenir collecting is also set out here.

Unlike in Veil and Luggage, two other particularly enjoyable books in this collection, there are no profound ideas here. Whilst there are certainly some areas of interest in Souvenir, I did not find it wholly engaging, and some sections were far easier to read than others.

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting, fairly quick read that looks at the concept of souvenir going back to the time of pilgrimages up until today. The history elements were fascinating - I had no idea that Jefferson and Adams had chipped off pieces of Shakespeare's chair and brought it back to the US as a souvenir -- as were the examinations of the cultural and personal significance that we attach to the items we bring back from our trips. Glad I picked this one up.

[Story · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're reading this at home, stop and look around you. Chances are your eyes will light on a souvenir. Perhaps it's a feather collected on a walk through a local park or perhaps something more exotic like a mask bought on a trip to India. Perhaps it's an 'authentic' cultural item such as a Haida totem pole key chain that was actually made in China. What do the items we collect as souvenirs say about us and about human nature?

Souvenir by Rolf Potts is part of the "Object Lessons" series which explores the hidden lives of ordinary things. The hidden lives of souvenirs from ancient times till today is a fascinating one. Did you know that travelers in Ancient Greece could take home a souvenir 'selfie', i.e. a tiny portrait of themselves painted in front of the Parthenon? Or that tourists visiting Alexandria in the second century BC could bring home souvenir gifts engraved with images of Ptolemaic queens? If these are the kinds of sociological factoids that excite you (as they do me) then you'll enjoy this book.

I look forward to reading more books in the Object Lessons series.

I received an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely one of the more interesting and successful volumes in the Object Lessons series. It explores the history, significance and universality of collecting souvenirs on our travels - it appears that as far back as the pilgrimages travellers have always felt the need to take something tangible back home with them. In fact that’s how the first museums began – with people collecting and bringing home mementos of their travels and putting them in cabinets of curiosities to show to their family and friends. The author discusses issues of authenticity and cultural appropriation and apart from an annoying stylistic tic of calling the usually useless things we but “tchotchkes” with tedious regularity does so in a thought-provoking and informed way. And unlike some of the other books in the series, there’s not a smidgen of pretentiousness or self-absorption to be found.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a maximalist and appreciator of interesting things, this little book helped me understand myself, my culture, and my idiosyncrasies in new and giant ways. I sense that I will reread it many times.

[Karen Germain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Bloomsbury Academic for providing me with an advance copy of Rolf Potts' book, Object Lessons: Souvenir, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- Object Lessons is a short non-fiction book series, where different authors explore the history and meaning of ordinary objects. In this installment, Rolf Potts explores souvenirs.

LIKE- This is my second book in the Object Lessons series. Last week, I read Susan Harlan's Luggage. Perhaps it was the subject manner, but I was much more engaged in Potts' Souvenir, than I was in Harlan's Luggage. These books are relatively short and I was so throughly entertained by Souvenir, that I raced through it in a single sitting.

Potts writes about the concept of souvenirs through the ages; Christian pilgrims searching for relics or how in war, physical pieces of the enemy were kept as tokens. One rather grizzly and disgusting mention was of soldiers who would take their enemies teeth and have their own rotten tooth replaced with the one they captured. That's a fact that I won't soon forget.

Taking physical pieces of important objects has destroyed many great monuments and artifacts. Potts writes about how it was so common in the 1800's to take a piece of Plymouth Rock, that local businesses sold chiseling tools for those who had forgotten to bring their own. Eventually, the rock was so damaged, that it had to be fenced off. I was shocked to read that during a visit to Shakespeare's home in Stratford-Upon-Avon, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams took a slice of wood out of a chair that the Bard had supposedly sat on. If you visit Jefferson's home, Monticello, you can see his stolen piece of wood. 

Why do we collect the things we do? Why is it important to buy cheap reminders of our travels? Potts speaks about how as children, souvenirs are an important form of identity. They are ways that a child shows what they admire or where they might want to travel later in life. When I was a kid, we went to Hawaii every year. This was great, but we never traveled anywhere else. I filled my room with pieces of other states and countries given to me by friends who had traveled there. In high school, I was obsessed with wanting to travel to New Orleans     (Thanks Anne Rice) and anything New York, so my room was filled with Mardi Gras masks and Broadway Theater posters. I still haven't been to Louisiana and it's still high on the travel bucket list.

Potts writes about the type of things people collect. Some people collect cheap, physical objects, like a miniature Eiffel Tower, where as other people seek out objects that feel more authentic, like a food item or textile manufactured locally. Souvenir will make you think about your own collecting habits. It will make you reflect.

Until my mid-twenties or so, I fell into the cheap, physical object category. Shopping was a vital part of my tourism experience. I wanted to return home with my suitcase filled with stuff. I vividly remember this from my trips to Walt Disney World. I spent hundreds on souvenirs. In 1999/2000, I went nuts for Disney Pins. Pin trading was a big deal, but I wanted to have them, more than I wanted to trade them. In just a few years, I bought thousands. It's mortifying to admit. Now, they are collecting dust in a box somewhere. They are pretty pins, but they certainly don't reflect my memories of my travels. They are completely unimportant, almost a burden.

My need to own and collect has changed dramatically. In the last six years, I've been to several countries in Europe for the first time and I've hardly bought any souvenirs. I've savored the experience and taken pictures, rather than feeling the need to own objects from every place that I visit. 

There are a few exceptions. We usually spend a few dollars on a magnet. It's a joy to look on our fridge and remember all of our travel experiences. If I find a local bookstore, I will buy a book written by a local author. This is mainly to support local writers/booksellers, but I love how this also has a way of extending our vacation, especially if the book is set in the same location of where we traveled. I also seek out books, primarily novels, about the place where we are traveling, before we go. I'm not precious about these books, I pass them along to a new reader as soon as I'm finished.

I will also buy food items or fragrances. This is my favorite way of extending our vacation and sharing our experiences with others.  It's a temporary souvenir, but one that I savor. Enjoying cheese from Amsterdam or Victoria Plum jelly from England on a sunny day in California, takes me right back to Europe. It's time travel.

DISLIKE- Nothing. Object Lessons: Souvenir is a thoughtful and entertaining book.

RECOMMEND- Yes! Object Lessons: Souvenir is a great read for anyone who loves to travel or collect. It's engaging and thought-provoking. It will make you examine your own tourism and collecting habits. I look forward to reading more books in the Object Lessons series.

Like my review? Check out my blog!

[Alia Shaukat · Rating 2 out of 5]

this is something i probably wouldn’t have read if it wasn’t for class, and something i don’t think i’ll pick up again.

i appreciate how thorough potts goes into ‘the souvenir’ but i could’ve used less history fluff & more concept (the abstract bits only come in during the last chapter, it seems). i got so bored!!

i expected to be weirded out because the book opens with white guy teaching english in asia but he actually makes some good points. the ‘souvenirs of human suffering’ portion of the book was surprisingly sensitive.

“The probiem, of course, was that the modern concept of authenticity invariably got mixed up with exoticized notions of how faraway cultures lived.” <3

extra points for how tiny & cute this book is tho

[Neal Tognazzini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decided to read a few more of these short Object Lessons books, and this one caught my eye. The souvenirs we collect from our travels, and the very fact that we collect souvenirs, says a lot about who we are and what we care about, and the author makes some nice points about that. The first couple of chapters about the history of the souvenir were less interesting to me than the later stuff about the way souvenirs speak to questions of authenticity, narrative, memory, and meaning. But on the whole it was a good read.

[Ryan Fohl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thought provoking great read with a good structure and lots of fun facts. Charming personal, but universal in its message. I read this while on vacation. I bought more souvenirs than I usually would, but I was more conscious about making the buying process more memorable. Each one has a personal story, and could remind me of our anniversary trip to Lisbon. Contains a very interesting look at "authenticity."

What I learned: All about Omiyage, and now I need to know what the most common or expected gift is from each city I'm in. Souvenir quick portraits goes back to ancient Athens at least. Palmer is a name for some one who went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The original Star Spangled Banner flag isn't battle scared, it was snipped by souvenir hunters! Cheap plastic crap Souvenirs prevent people from stealing, so they serve a purpose at sacred sites. Special farms exist in China for the paper weight insect market. War mementos help the soldier to imagine they will one day go home. Shopping can provide a sense of the ordinary in a strange and stressful place.

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Souvenir by Rolf Potts reads like a quick history of travel, not laugh out loud funny like Bill Bryson, but engrossing, academic and edifying the way he is. Potts writes non-fiction with heart, like Oliver Sacks. I had no idea the subject of souvenirs was so rich in drama, scope and horror. This book covers so much of the world, and includes great turns of phrase like "a pompous display of conspicuous piety," "The Dire Souvenir Mania" (a newspaper editorial heading), and "staged authenticity". I find it interesting how souvenir collecting evolves over time, the related economics, and factors that direct our impulses and habits. As someone who's lived in three different continents and has always enjoyed traveling, I love contemplating the difference between "tourists" and "travelers". And as a parent who's often complained about all the random crap my kids find and hoard, learning that "children seek and keep objects for fundamental reasons providing an emerging sense of control over his or her environment" makes it easier for me to let my kids keep their treasures.

[John Plowright · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Souvenir’ by Rolf Potts reflects on why we seek out these physical remembrances of our travels, and what this act of collection can tell us at both a social and personal level.

The author’s own souvenir collecting is set within the context of a history of the practice which includes the trade in religious relics; the creation of cabinets of curiosities; the Grand Tour; the endowment of public museums; and the gradual displacement of “artifacts, found objects, or place-specific keepsakes created by local craftsmen” by “mass-produced gift-shop items that depended upon increasingly sophisticated networks of manufacturers, distributors and vendors.” There is even a section on human trophy collecting in relation to public executions and the battlefield.

Potts can sometimes appears to make up his mind as he goes along. For example he writes that, “In some ways modern tourism in the West traces back to the Christian rite of pilgrimage” only to tell the reader a page later that already “By the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans, manufactured souvenirs had become a cottage industry around religious and recreational sites” and then to opine that “No doubt the impulse to make faraway places tangible by collecting objects predates recorded history.”

Similarly, he makes out a case for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair representing a landmark event in the development of the souvenir industry, only for a slightly later discussion of the 1889 Paris Exposition to show that its claims are actually superior, not least because it popularized the picture postcard as souvenir. He also has an annoying habit of referring to ‘tchotchkes’ – an American colloquialism for a trinket.

On the other hand, Potts offers plenty of fascinating detail likely to appeal to one’s sense of the paradoxical, with souvenirs nominally celebrating new cultures that one has encountered yet mostly expressing our own cultural imperative to consume, and most souvenirs either imported for sale or tourist-driven perversions of indigenous folk art.

In short, whilst not always as eloquently expressed as it might have been, this is yet another thought-provoking book in Bloomsbury’s excellent Object Lessons series.

[Tamela Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone collects mementos of places we've been. Even before the Greek and Roman eras, humans made pilgrimages and collected devotional fetishes. The Christian tradition of bringing back relics from sacred sites even begat a spinoff industry of "contact relics"(ex: a piece of cloth that had touched a saint's bone) that were in turn used to consecrate new churches (and enrich bishops' pocketbooks and influence).

In Souvenirs, Rolf P0tts explores five different categories of souvenirs:

1. Physical remnants of the destination or experience (a piece of Plymouth Rock)
2. Local products (anything from food to clothing and tchotchkes)
3. Mass-market objects that capture a picture of the place (postcards and tea towels with a picture of Big Ben)
4. Mass-market objects that are branded with the location ("My mom went to Paris and all I got was this lousy T-shirt")
5. Mass-produced symbolic shorthand (a keychain with a mini Machu Picchu charm)

If this sounds like a fluffy book, stay tuned. Potts isn't afraid to show us the darker side of tourist souvenirs. The most disturbing souvenirs of human suffering include mementos of lynchings. Some lynching trees were actually stripped of their bark by people who were there too late to get one of the victim's teeth or bones. Apparently, we haven't evolved beyond this barbarity. Potts tells us that as late as 2011, an Army staff sergeant killed three Afghans and collected their fingers; he compared the act to harvesting the antlers from bucks he shot back home.

The book has lighter moments too, including the way that stereotypes play into our travel and souvenir expectations. One such story is of a movie producer scouting for locations in the Scottish Highlands who quipped, "I went to Scotland but I could find nothing that looked like Scotland."

So much to love about this little book. It's 20k words at most, and every one of them is informative and enlightening. I read it in a sitting.

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Souvenir by Rolf Potts is a history of what people collect to remember their travels. Potts has reported from more than sixty countries for the likes of National Geographic Traveler, the New York Times Magazine, Slate.com, Conde Nast Traveler, Outside, The Believer, The Guardian (U.K.), National Public Radio, and the Travel Channel.

Bloomsbury’s look at common objects focuses on souvenirs in this edition. Starting at a shop that specializes in Eiffel Tower souvenirs and moves to the history the things we buy “to remember.” Souvenirs have a long history starting with collecting religious artifacts in the middle ages. The Sanctuary of the Ascension build over the spot where Jesus ascended into heaven has a paved floor except for the spot where the event occurred. No one wanted to pave over the sand and dust that made contact with the Saviour’s feet. This sand and dust became souvenirs to pilgrims who would grab what they could. More enterprising people sold sand to pilgrims claiming it was from the sanctuary. Other religious relics circulated. One would feel quite lucky to have purchased the head of John the Baptist in the Holy Land until he returned home and found two other heads of John the Baptist. Religious items were the first souvenirs collected by travelers. Later it moved to exotic animals and items and then moved to collectible teaspoons and postcards, and finally Chinese made Eiffel Tower keyrings.

Potts does an excellent job of connecting the object and the desire to remember places, and even show off places one traveled too. As traveling became easier the market for souvenirs increased. And if one does not want to actually travel one can buy online the same keyring sold in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. A well-written history of something we take for granted and an industry we support on almost all our travels.

[Diane Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone has at least one souvenir sitting on a shelf or hanging on a wall. Why do we buy them? What do they represent? How did the practice start? All these questions and more are answered in this cute little information-packed book.

There are three types of souvenirs discussed in Souvenir: physical fragments, local products, and pictorial images (i.e., postcards, t-shirts, keychains, shot glasses and tiny Eiffel towers). Beginning with Christian pilgrims taking a bit of the dirt where Christ walked to Thomas Jefferson peeling a chunk of wood off Shakespeare’s chair, physical fragments began the search for souvenirs. Demand for local products has benefitted cathedrals to African tribes. It has also promoted world trade and knock-offs as varied as shrunken heads made from monkeys, fake hangman’s rope and “Australian” boomerangs made in Bali. How the age of email and the selfie has impacted pictorial image sales is addressed within Souvenir too.

In addition to what is used for souvenirs, Souvenir suggests the various reasons that souvenirs are acquired. Both history and culture are explored.

A fascinating discussion on an overlooked subject. Souvenir is a great book to read before a trip especially on an airplane, train or cruise ship. 4 stars!

Thanks to the publisher, Bloomsbury Academic, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.

Read this review and others at my book blog: dianereviewsbooks.com.

[Federico Pani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Due cartoline dal passato. La prima: nel Medioevo si diceva che il pavimento in terra della Chiesa dell’Ascensione, a Gerusalemme, sul Monte degli ulivi, fosse lo stesso calpestato da Gesù, sicché molti pellegrini raccoglievano manciate di terriccio da riportare a casa; i custodi, a quel punto, si trovavano a dover continuamente rimpiazzare quella terra. La seconda: nel Settecento, in visita alla casa di Shakespeare, i due padri della patria statunitense Thomas Jefferson e John Adams, come ricordo, staccarono una scheggia dalla sedia che, si diceva, fosse quella del poeta; un atto vandalico ai nostri occhi, ma non per l’epoca: anche i visitatori della residenza di George Washington (a Mount Vernon in Virginia) spesso trafugavano degli oggetti, a guisa di ricordo. Certo non si sarebbe potuto andare avanti così: cominciava l’epoca delle ferrovie e il turismo si sarebbe fatto presto di massa; lasciare i luoghi di visita alla mercé di tali spoliazioni sarebbe stato insostenibile. Già, ma come soddisfare il desiderio dei visitatori di ottenere un oggetto ricordo? La soluzione arrivò: un’industria che sparse in tutto il mondo dei gadget prodotti in serie, dai cucchiaini alle cartoline, sino ai portachiavi a forma di Tour Eiffel. È una storia di oggetti dal valore soprattutto simbolico: più che dei luoghi, i souvenir sono lo specchio di noi stessi: delle nostre vite e identità, e delle aspettative – spesso stereotipate – sui luoghi che visitiamo.

[Adele · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really interesting little book about the history of souvenir collecting & our ongoing compulsion to have a memento of our experiences of travel or the important events in our lives. Beginning with pilgrimage relics, the book describes the intrinsic human impulse of status advertising, i.e. the ‘look at how worldly & wealthy I am’, boast, to how that demand has driven the souvenir market over time & geography. To collect seems to be a universal desire that hasn’t changed much over time. What we collect may change, because of cultural values, but the reasons behind collecting are the same as ever. The chapter on ‘Souvenirs & human suffering’, was gruesome & shocking, as it detailed the collecting of human death relics, specifically from the bodies of lynched black men in the early decades of the last century. The chapter also explored the psychological reasons why many soldiers bring back war souvenirs perhaps as a talisman of their own survival.
In essence, this is a small thought provoking, very well written book, in a series called ‘Object Lessons’ “about the hidden life of ordinary things”. I’m keen to read more in the series of which there are many, with titles as diverse as ‘Blanket’, ‘Password’ & ‘Eye Chart’. This is a pretty clumsy review, written as a snapshot, quick reminder to myself that really doesn’t do justice to the quality of Rolf Potts’ Souvenir essay.

[Mark Clackum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rolf Potts, as a heartland American, certainly has the decades of far flung & long-term travel experience to wring insights from his volume of firsthand observations.
The book traces the history of souvenirs & our evolving customs:
Holy relics became fetishes became Wunderkammern for Germanic Princes, which inspired personal collections of souvenirs to ratify experience, (which rapidly became embellishment); private collections became public museums which Foucault would say shaped the Classical epistem & is still shaping the Modern Epistem. Adam Smith & John Maynard Keynes would have predicted the culture appropriating satisfaction of market demands that have lead to the complex phenomena of Chinese made Eiffel tower Keychains sold in worldwide airports; & boomerangs made of bamboo in Bali being sold all over Australia; & Micro-economies structured around indigenous peoples publicly affecting stereotypical dress for the sake of modern tourists who want an "authentic" experience.
My favorite part is the idea that life itself can be a pilgrimage & any object can be imbued with potent personal significance & that the collection of souvenirs is our way of mythologizing our own lives.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

“In French, the word souvenir is commonly used as a verb, and means ‘to get back to myself,’ or ‘to remember.’ People have brought home travel mementos since 2200BC when an Egyptian prince brought back leopard skins and elephant tusks to present to the pharaoh. Potts writes a lovely ‘little book/ essay/ musings’ on souvenirs, both entertaining and informative.

‘Piece of the rock’ souvenirs are physical fragments of the destination. Potts tells a humorous story about pilgrims taking ‘Jesus touched’ dirt off the sanctuary floor and church caretakers hauling new dirt back in. Latin emperors of Constantinople sold a chunk of the 'True Cross' to pay off debts or pawned the crown of thorns to fund a war against the Bulgars. Sometimes relics were even labeled, “soil drenched with the Blood of Christ.” That’s why I’m a cynic with that stuff.

Wealthy travelers collected worldly curiosities (ostrich eggs, a whale jawbone, a stuffed crocodile) meant to impress visitors. In 1715 Richard Boyle brought home 878 pieces of luggage from his year long continental journey. Some items from travels like these eventually ended up in the British Museum for others to learn from and enjoy.

As travel became more affordable, souvenirs became more mass produced. Postcards emerged in the late nineteenth century. Like most mass-produced souvenirs, they are cheap, mobile, self-contained, and easy to collect – like souvenir spoons. The US souvenir and gift market generates $19 Billion of revue a year. That’s a lot of kitsch.

“When we collect souvenirs, we do so not to evaluate the world, but to narrate the self.” Potts’ short, charming book illuminates our trinkets, treasures, and memories. Since we were children, collecting objects was a way to familiarize “ourselves with the world, its possibilities and our place in it.”

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for granting access to an arc of this book for an honest review.

[Luke Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rolf Potts, in this short book, tells historically and psychologically about our infatuations with souvenirs. He shows how we all seem to succumb at one point or another to wanting a souvenir, no matter how famous (such as Thomas Jefferson) or common (the reader). He talks of his own souvenirs as a travel writer and which ones mean the most to him. He tells about the different types of souvenirs and how, historically, the idea of souvenirs has changed cities and towns (usually by destroying the thing people want to remember). He also talks to a marketing expert about which souvenirs sell the best and why, and digs in deeper to discover the stranger souvenirs some travelers prefer.

Mainly, what makes this book so great, is how Rolf brings to light and examines something so common and breaks it down, codifies it, and serves it back as a morsel to chew on long after having finished the book.

[Kotryna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tiny read (pretty much of the size of a souvenir) on travel souvenirs in a broad sense of the word. A lovely mix of authors personal experience and more extensive research; a good starting point for those specifically interested in compulsive documentation of an experience or a commodification of culture; but most importantly, it's a book for everyone who travels, buys a magnet or a postcard or takes a snapshot of oneself in front of a famous building – we all do it, and this book puts these habits into a historical and anthropological context.
A postcard is not just a postcard after you read this.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Souvenir is an interesting analysis of the history of souvenirs, and what they've meant to people and countries. As someone that has mostly sworn off collecting souvenirs for the most part, I found the chapter to authenticity to be an interesting reinforcement of my beliefs on acquiring items while traveling. I was surprised and horrified to find out some of the things collected and their meaning for certain individuals.

I've always enjoyed Rolf Potts travel literature. While less lengthy than his other works and more factual in nature, I found it to be an interesting read.

[Vivian Witkind · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this little book where the medium is the message: at 4.5" by 6", it would fit nicely on a rack at a souvenir stand. Rolf Potts explores the long history of souvenirs—objects collected during travels. Pilgrims in the Middle Ages spirited away handfuls of dust from sanctuary floors, leading eventually to a “sacred-object economy.” Thomas Jefferson snagged a piece of wood from a chair that had belonged to Shakespeare. Collecting souvenirs from public executions has a long history. I’ll think about Souvenir when I bring home another refrigerator magnet or key chain.

[C.G.Koens · Rating 4 out of 5]

A different take on the objects we keep

I enjoyed this short little book, and it made me think a little differently about my own collection of keepsakes from our years overseas and traveling the world. What has meaning for us, Christmas ornaments, for example, means absolutely nothing to our children, who weren't with us when those memories were made.

This book contains some history, some personal tidbits, and some general fun ways to look at the stuff we keep with us in life or bring home from our travels. A cute little book to read on Kindle.

[Renee Lareau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part of the Object Lessons series—short books that delve into the meaning of everyday objects—this book focuses on the history and meaning of souvenirs. I am reading this book on vacation, so I’ve enjoyed thinking about it while visiting souvenir shops with my kids and also contemplating the ways we commemorate and certify the journeys we take. Whether we’re collecting shells or buying mass-produced trinkets, the act of procuring souvenirs is one that humans have been carrying out for centuries.

[Kevin Thurman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Potts does a great job of exploring in depth & simply at the same time a complex subject

For those interested in travel, sociology, and history Potts’ Object Lesson for Souvenirs is a great read and highly recommended. It is one of the few tourism and travel focused books that looks at the subject through history, modern, and personal means that make it an informative and insightful read.

[Amanda Lagerfeld · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book in this series I have read and both were fascinating! An in depth look at something we give little to no thought to I was truly riveted. From the millions of Eiffel Towers to the stealing of body parts after lynchings this book covers it all. If you have ever bought a New York tshirt or a Sydney Harbour Bridge mug or any other token made in China you should give this book a look.