Product Description

Ideas of Landscape discusses the current theory and practice of landscape archaeology and offers an alternative agenda for landscape archaeology that maps more closely onto the established empirical strengths of landscape study and has more contemporary relevance.

• The first historical assessment of a critical period in archaeology
  
• Takes as its focus the so–called English landscape tradition –– the ideological underpinnings of which come from English Romanticism, via the influence of the “father of landscape history”: W. G. Hoskins
  
• Argues that the strengths and weaknesses of landscape archaeology can be traced back to the underlying theoretical discontents of Romanticism
  
• Offers an alternative agenda for landscape archaeology that maps more closely onto the established empirical strengths of landscape study and has more contemporary relevance

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #93426 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 264 pages

Review
"I read Matthew Johnson′s Ideas of Landscape (Blackwell) with intense interest. It discusses the theory and practice of landscape archaeology and the Romantic English landscape tradition, boldly taking on received opinion about figures such as Wordsworth and WG Hoskins, and making us think hard about what we can know about the past, why we want to know it, and how we may be misled about it. It′s an original, informative, and well–argued work, accessible to the general reader, and both worrying and illuminating."
Margaret Drabble, Times Literary Supplement

“One might suggest that in this excellent work, Johnson has written an archaeology of knowledge concerning landscape studies. A glossary and illustrations add meaningfully to a work of much industry … Highly recommended.”
Choice

"Ideas of Landscape is a challenging and accessible contribution to an expanding theoretical and historical field. Mobilizing the English topographical tradition of scholarship, centred on the writings of W.G. Hoskins, the book positions a critical understanding of landscape, as both cultural representation and physical reality, at the centre of the study of the past and its meanings in the present." Stephen Daniels, Professor of Cultural Geography, University of Nottingham

"Matthew Johnson writes an archaeology of knowledge for landscape studies. He enables us to know what to study next by knowing how the field was formed and the mistakes its practitioners made. Both a deconstruction and a forecast, Johnson′s volume ranks with the new books on race by Orser, on colonialism by Schrire, and with his own foundational An Archaeology of Capitalism. With these books historical archaeology is mature." Mark P. Leone, Professor of Anthropology, University of Maryland

“Ideas of Landscape is a towering contribution––shall we say, a high vantage point from which one can
survey a scholarly landscape?”
Canadian Journal of Archaeology

From the Back Cover
Ideas of Landscape offers an engaging discussion of the theory and practice of landscape archaeology today. Drawing on his local experience, Matthew Johnson focuses on the so–called English landscape tradition and discusses why it is so distinctive: it stands at some distance from North American and other approaches, in which “theory” plays a more prominent role. Johnson identifies the origins of this tradition in English Romanticism, through the influence of the “father of landscape history” W.G. Hoskins among others, and argues that the strengths and weaknesses of landscape archaeology can be traced back to the underlying theoretical discontents of the Romantic movement. He offers an alternative agenda, which maps more closely on to the established empirical strengths of landscape study and is more relevant both to the thrust of interdisciplinary landscape studies and to contemporary social concerns. Passionately and accessibly written, this engaging book takes up a crucial strand in archaeological thinking and examines it critically for the first time.

About the Author
Matthew Johnson is Professor of Archaeology, University of Southampton, and author of Behind the Castle Gate (2002), Archaeological Theory: An Introduction (Blackwell, 1999), An Archaeology of Capitalism (Blackwell, 1996), and Housing Culture (1993).

Customer Reviews

"Ideas of Landscape"
In "Ideas of Landscapes", Matthew Johnson, while focusing on the English landscape, sets out to recapitulate the history of landscape archaeology and the theoretical constructs which have followed its development. He details the two conflicting attitudes to the study of landscape archaeology, the virtues and shortcomings of each and he proposes a moderated path for the discipline to pursue in the future. Matthew Johnson is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Southampton and has a background in both the theoretical and practical aspects of the discipline, having written on archaeological theory, fieldwork in Swaledale and various aspects of housing.

The book is clearly planned, proposing the `argument' at the very outset, and using a case study in the preface to give an overview of how the discipline of landscape archaeology has developed and been viewed by those who arrived later. These are followed by chapters describing each of the stages of development of the discipline, and ending with contemporary thoughts and ideas for future progress.
Johnson is very successful at giving a readable and clear account of the development of landscape archaeology and its practice up to the present day. He covers the basic division which has developed between the theoretical view of prehistory and those who specialise in the historical period, but there is an over-emphasis on the connection between work on the historic period and the influence of the Romantics. It was always a simplistic criticism that the early practitioners of landscape archaeology were influenced by the Romantic Movement, but too much has been made of perceived shortcomings in early work. Much should be learnt from both camps, as each have strengths as well as blind spots, and Johnson proposes a way forward to develop the field. This book provides many challenging questions for us to consider about the nature of landscape archaeology and indeed archaeology as a whole. After seeding doubt about the truth of any understanding of the past he is able to reintegrate current thinking on the subject and provide a positive thrust for future study.

This book gives an opportunity to re-evaluate any preconceptions of landscape archaeology and stimulates thought around the concepts of theory versus empirical work. It focuses attention on the fundamental problem of all archaeology, that of how better to understand the people of all periods of the past, and how we may best achieve this.