The Global Soul
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''The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home'' is a 2001 collection of essays by
Pico Iyer Siddharth Pico Raghavan Iyer (born 11 February 1957), known as Pico Iyer, is a British-born essayist and novelist known chiefly for his travel writing. He is the author of numerous books on crossing cultures including ''Video Night in Kathmandu ...
, reflecting on the increasingly
globalized Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
world and the ramifications that this has for him personally. The book belongs in the corpus of
travel writing Travel is the movement of people between distant geographical locations. Travel can be done by foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, bus, airplane, ship or other means, with or without luggage, and can be one way or round trip. Travel c ...
, though its series of chapters often offer a highly introspective view of the author's person-hood. Iyer travels through
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, the Los Angeles airport (a microcosm of a city),
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
,
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
, Britain, Japan, and discusses the
Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...
as a force of and for globalism. Through the book, Iyer identifies himself as a global soul, which is an uprooted person who cannot fully adopt a single
nationality Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...
and often finds themselves going through life as a
tourist Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...
. The book discusses ideas of marginalized cultures, loss of
the Real In continental philosophy, the Real refers to the remainder of reality that cannot be expressed, and which surpasses reasoning. In Lacanianism, it is an "impossible" category because of its opposition to expression and inconceivability. I ...
, and the shifting sense of identity that modernity offers.


External links


January Magazine Article on the book
{{DEFAULTSORT:Global Soul Essay collections 2001 non-fiction books Travel books