Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1510996 in Books
• Published on: 1998-11-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Synopsis
Landscape has been central to definitions of Englishness for centuries. This book argues that, in fact, landscape has been the site where English visions of the past, present and future have met in debates over questions of national identity, disputes over history and modernity, and ideals of citizenship and the body. Extensively illustrated, the book draws on a wide range of materials, including topographical guides, health manuals, paintings, poetry, architectural polemic, photography, nature guides and novels. The author first examines the inter-war period, showing how a vision of Englishness and landscape as both modern and traditional, urban and rural, progressive and preservationist, took shape around debates over building in the countryside, the replanning of cities, and the cultures of leisure and citizenship. He concludes by tracing out the story of landscape and Englishness to the present day, showing how the familiar terms of debate regarding landscape and heritage are a product of the immediate post-war era, and asking how current arguments over care for the environment or expressions of the nation resonate with earlier histories and geographies.

Customer Reviews

Re-imagining landscape and its association with England
David Matless' masterpiece ensures that you'll never view your surroundings through the same eyes again. Looking at the way the landscape in this country has been perceived, designed and re-imagined, Matless takes a chronological journey from the turn of the century to the present day. Tracing the views of both governmental and marginal organisations, we soon learn how definitions of taste, fitness for purpose, and modernity fluctuate over time. According to Matless the two World Wars provide fulcrums for change - helping to construct new ideas about the landscape, and the buildings within it. The Second World War in particular is seen as a watershed, whereby modernity sprung from the need to eradicate the destruction caused by the Luftwaffe. Re-construction in its hideous form resulted. In more recent times, the voices influencing ideas about landscape have become ever more informal, as exemplified by the Kinks' "Village Green Preservation Society". Ultimately we see that throughout the Twentieth Century arguments have swayed one way and then the next, and at times come full circle. We also see that ideas of English Landscape have not always been entirely English. All in all, this is a wonderful read and the perfect book for anyone interested in cultural geography.