The Meaning And Purpose Of Leisure

This book is a crucial contribution to the debate about the meaning and purpose of leisure at the end of modernity. Karl Spracklen uses Jurgen Habermas's work on the tension of rationalities to situate leisure and critical studies of leisure as meaningful and valuable in the twenty-first century. In particular, Spracklen uses Habermas' concerns between free, communicative discourse and globalizing, commodifying instrumentality to interrogate leisure as a critical, theoretical concept.

Drawing on examples from sport, popular culture and tourism, and going beyond concerns about the grand project of leisure, Spracklen argues that leisure is central to understanding wider debates about identity, postmodernity and globalization. Review: 'Spracklen's two books (both of which apply a Habermasian perspective to the study of leisure) are probably the most important contributions to leisure scholarship so far in the twenty-first century.' - Ken Roberts, Leisure Studies