Projects of Transcendence Record Type: Review   ID: 243
The Story of Leisure: Context, Concepts, and Current Controversy Shivers, Jay S., & deLisle, Lee J.
The authors’ capsule summary of their book states that it "offers a detailed examination of leisure as a significant aspect of human life from the beginnings of free time in prehistory to the present. The authors have attempted to pull together all the concerns that relate to leisure. Thus, we discuss historical importance, sociological constructs, political implications, economic impacts, and trends in academic perspective. All this material provides a framework on which leisure may be understood in context" (p. v). They define leisure vary simply as "free time," and this book is a record of what people have done with their "leisure time." Leisure activities, because they are often engaged in as a result of a spontaneous whim or a strong need for self-expression, often involve discipline, repetitive activity, and built-in challenges to achieve personal bests, and provide a way of measuring individual progress and making comparisons with others. Thus, they are prime seedbeds for the occurrence of Exceptional Experiences (EEs). The context provided by a leisure activity can also be conducive to potentiating an EE into an EHE, which often occurs as a culmination of a stage in the given leisure activity. The authors describe the recreational experience (pp. 102-104) and discuss "recreational activity and self-fulfillment" (pp. 104-105).
Publisher Information:	Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1997. Pp. v + 217. Chapnotes: 201-207; Chap. refs; Glos: 18, 32, 47-48, 73-74, 89; 5 illus; Ind: 209-215; 40 photos; 2 ports; 1 table

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