Product Description

The forest primeval, the river of life, the sacred mount -- read 'Landscape and Memory' to have these explained! 'Landscape and Memory' is a history book unlike any other. In a series of journeys through space and time, it examines our relationship with the landscape around us -- rivers, mountains, forests -- the impact each of them has had on our culture and imaginations, and the way in which we, in turn, have shaped them to answer our needs. This is not a conventional history book, but a book that builds up its argument by a series of poetic stories and impressions which cumulatively have the effect of a great novel. The forest primeval, the river of life, the sacred mount -- at the end of this wonderful book we understand where these ideas have come from, why they are so compelling and how they still lie all around us.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37874 in Books
• Published on: 1996-03-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

Review
'One of the most intelligent, original, stimulating, self-indulgent, perverse and irresistibly enjoyable books I have ever read.' Philip Ziegler 'This is a tour de force of vivid historical writing!It is astonishingly learned, and yet offered with verve, humour and an unflagging sense of delight.' Michael Ignatieff, IOS 'Simon Schama is a giant, a great thinking machine and a golden lyricist as well. He takes us beyond geololgy and vegetation into myth and memory, to unravel the ancient connections which bring mountain, forest and river into our soul.' Brian Masters, MoS 'Schama long ago established himself as one of the most learned, original and provocative historians in the English speaking world!Unclassifiable, inimitable, fascinating, "Landscape and Memory" will inform and haunt, chasten and enrage. It is that rarest of commodities in our cultural marketplace -- a work of genuine originality.' Anthony Grafton, New Republic 'Schama's inensely visual prose is the product of an historical imagination which is not restrained by conventional academic inhibitions. It is his ability and willingness to write this sort of narrative prose -- vivid, elaborate, unashamedly colourful -- that makes Simon Schama the obvious modern successor to Macaulay. He is a masterly narrator who spins and embroiders his yarns with unflagging zest. The book abounds in virtuoso passages, some of them reminiscent of Rabelais or Sterne.' Keith Thomas, NYRB

About the Author
Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University. He is the author of 'Patriots and Liberators', which won the Wolfson Prize for History, 'The Embarrassment of Riches', 'Citizens' which won the 1990 NCR book award for non-fiction, 'Dead Certainties', 'Landscape and Memory' which won the W H Smith Literary Award in 1995, and 'Rembrandt's Eyes' (1999). He is also the author of the monumental 'History of Britain' published in three volumes. He was art critic of the 'New Yorker' from 1995 to 1998 and was made CBE in the 2001 New Year's Honours list.

Customer Reviews

A brilliant,original and thought-provoking book
In a wide sweep of history that encompassess as unlikely a set of figures as Varus, a Roman general responsible for a catastrophic lost battle in the Black Forest and a 19th century French founder of the concept of "eco-rambling", Simon Schama has produced a stunning work that seeks to answer the central question: is our view of nature ruled by the mind, or by magical human interpretations? Woven into this rich,scholarly tapestry of ideas we meet the man who carved Mt. Rushmore and Hermann Goering. How are these people's ideas linked (or not) to Thoreau is just one of the questions answered by Schama.

There are few books that could match this pyrotechnic display of learning and exposition of aesthetic views of nature that have shaped warfare,politics,religion and modern ecology. It is impossible to view today's environmentalism before reading this provocative and insightful book the same way as when one puts it down.

A bit of a mess
This is more a collection of interesting stuff than the sort of coherent thing that a book should be. Nevertheless, a lot of the collection of stuff is well worth reading. And Schama is a decent art critic on the side.