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.

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.

As a perpetual traveller I found this book to be an enjoyable read(truth be told I actually read it while on a cruise). My wife and I collect a plate from each place we go so to know that there are people who study why we do this was a very meta experience for me. I felt it was a fun and interesting read.

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.

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. A lot of it is about the taking of body parts 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 taken directly from the Bloomsbury website for this title.

‘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.

This is another entry in a good little series on objects--this time it is the concept of souvenir, from the fancy-packaged treats (Hawaiian macadamia nuts, Scotch whisky, Cuban cigars) at the Tokyo airport meant to allow returning passengers to pick up the delicacies of places without taking time out from business to find them, medieval Christian pilgrimage badges, Grand Tour purchases (and syphilis!) , war trophies and lynching postcards, a trade show in Vegas for souvenir manufacturers, the disappointment of the Rio Games souvenir sellers, and the origins of commemorative spoons.

A superlative read, about something we all take for granted, and never thought to enjoy reading about nearly as much. You will always remember where you were when you bought this…