to travel to Northern Ontario is nonexistent as it is mainly by car’’ (p. 159), this just after the authors have described travel by tourists on the Polar Bear Express train. In conclusion, the book would be a useful addition to a tourism library, largely because of its extensive review of the literature and the interesting case studies. It would benefit, however, from the addition of a sub-title, such as ‘‘Why It Has Not Been Achieved’’. Paul F. Wilkinson: Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3. Email <eswilkin@yorku.ca> Assigned 16 January 2011. Submitted 18 March 2011. Accepted 21 March 2011. doi:10.1016/j.annals.2011.04.012 THE TOURISM ENCOUNTER: FASHIONING LATIN AMERICAN NATIONS AND HISTORIES By Florence E. Babb. Stanford University Press <www.sup.org> 2011, xvii + 243 pp. (figures, bibliography, index) $21.95 Pbk. ISBN 978-0-8047-7156-6. Jillian M. Rickly-Boyd Indiana University, USA Florence Babb brings together years of research and experience in four geographic regions—Cuba; Nicaragua; Andean Peru; and Chiapas, Mexico—in her book, The Tourism Encounter. While her work has not always focused on tourism, the author notes, ‘‘I have found tourism research to offer fertile ground for thinking through the diverse, often unexpected ways in which transitional societies work to further processes of social transformation and, as they do so, fashion themselves anew’’ (p. xiii). Babb’s argument centers on the notion of ‘‘tourism as a staging ground for national-heritage formation in societies undergoing abrupt political and economic transition’’ and suggests, accordingly, that differences of gender and race affect the positioning of such actors in subsequent tourism development, marketing, and experiences (p. 15). In that sense, the title of this book—The Tourism Encounter—is quite appropri- ate, as the author aims to hold both tourists and toured in equal measure as she focuses on the ‘‘intimate relationship’’, the ‘‘coming together’’, of those from different cultures and societies under the framework of tourism. What is not suggested by this title, but figures quite prominently throughout the text, is the significance of gender in the power relations that govern tourism encounters in these transitional nations. Presenting sustained ethnographic projects in a comparative framework, the author brings together a number of qualitative methods. While a strong thread of historical research and participant observation runs through these projects, interview and questionnaire data are utilized to different ends. Whereas question- naires seem to have been more narrowly utilized, representing tourist motivations, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 1208–1209, 2011 Printed in Great Britain 1208 Publications in review / Annals of Tourism Research 38 (2011) 1193–1211