Prescott-Steed (art history & visual culture studies, Academy of Design) considers how we inhabit late modern built environments and how embodied practice, like the dřive, can defamiliarize them. The dřive is a practice that consists mainly of an unplanned walk in an urban environment that comes out of the psychogeographic toolbox of the Situationists. Prescott-Steed has documented several of these he's conducted and instructs readers on how they might approach their own. He also looks back at Baudelaire's flaneur, with his aimless walks, and considers them as "an alternative solution to the demands of industry upon the human body." He tries to situate his own practice and what he advocates in the context of late modern consumer culture, novelty culture, and standardization. There is considerable theory, but the book works best as an impetus for going out into the world and learning from it. Brown Walker is a division of Dissertation.com and Universal Publishers (Boca Raton, FL). Annotation 2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
