A fascinating survey of the enduring human love affair with the exotic and the strange, and its impact on Western culture Exotic explores our obsession with the lure of distant lands and their promise of the weird and wonderful, the beautiful and grotesque. Through a host of evocative images, this book shows how the absorption of ‘the foreign,' through arts, design, architecture, and other cultural elements, has consistently enriched Western society, contributing to it cultural dynamism and artistic energy. Exotic's focus is especially relevant to the modern globalized world in which our engagement with cultures and traditions from around the globe is easier – and potentially more fraught – than ever before.