Draws together many histories-- of anatomical evolution & city design, of treadmills & labyrinths, of walking clubs & sexual mores -- to create a portrait of the range of possibilities for this most basic act. Argues that walking as history signifies walking for pleasure & for political, aesthetic, & social meaning. Hones in on the walkers whose everyday & extreme acts have shaped our culture, from the peripatetic philosophers of ancient Greece to the poets of the Romantic Age, from the perambulations of the Surrealists to the ascents of the mountaineers. There is a profound relationship between walking & thinking, & walking & culture. Argues for the necessity of preserving the time & space to walk in an ever more auto-dependent & accelerated world.