Arthur Frommer: “I Hated the Jingoism”

Guidebook author Arthur Frommer is featured in a short profile in The Seattle Times. The piece covers some interesting ground, including Frommer’s non travel-related books (among them, “The Bible and the Public Schools,” in which he argued against compulsory Bible reading in schools), and his unorthodox guidebook to Branson, Missouri. “It’s the only guidebook in history,” he said, “that tells the reader, in effect, do not go!”

Frommer, who grew up in Missouri, didn’t much care for town. “I hated the jingoism,” he said. “I hated these country singers, who had all been draft dodgers themselves during Vietnam, who marched down the aisle with drum beats, with machine-gun bullets, and waved the flag. Also, all of these people who become so religious! ... Many of the country-music theaters in Branson are used as stages for proselytizing.”

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