Unpacked by Afar

The Hidden History of the World's Most Powerful Travel Document

March 12
34 mins

Episode Description

Before you board an international flight, before you cross a border, you need a passport. But how much do you really know about the little book that controls where you can and cannot go in this world?

On this episode of Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene sits down with Patrick Bixby, an English professor at Arizona State University and author of the book License to Travel: A Cultural History of the Passport, which explores how a bureaucratic document became one of the most emotionally loaded objects in human history.

In the episode, they discuss the passport as a paradox: a document that simultaneously promises freedom and enforces control, that carries the hopes of liberation and the machinery of surveillance. You'll come away seeing that little booklet in your drawer in a completely different light.


In this episode, you'll learn

    • Why the passport as we know it was born out of World War I — and why those wartime controls never went away.
    • How the word "passport" dates to 15th-century France, and why Shakespeare wrote about it.
    • What Frederick Douglass's passport journey reveals about citizenship, race, and the fight for identity.Why the US passport ranks around 30th in global passport power — and what that means for American travelers.
    • What's coming next: digital borders, blockchain credentials, and the end of the stamp.


Key chapters

00:00:00 The Paradox of the Passport 00:04:00 A History Older Than Nations 00:09:00 The WWI Origins of Modern Travel 00:11:00 Gender, Race, and the Document 00:16:00 What Makes a Passport Powerful 00:20:00 Stamps, Surveillance, and the Digital Border 00:26:00 Do You Believe in the Passport?


Meet this week's guest

Patrick Bixby, English professor, cultural historian, and author of License to Travel: A Cultural History of the Passport

Resources

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