Landscape and Englishness Hb (Picturing History) - Hardcover

Matless, D

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1861890222 ISBN 13: 9781861890221

Publisher: Reaktion Books, 1998

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.

About this title

Review:

' - cultural history at its best, subtle, multi-layered and full of new ideas and insights - this book is a "must".' - Contemporary British History ' - creates a convincing portrait of the changing meanings of the English landscape in the twentieth century.' - The Times Literary Supplement

About the Author:

David Matless is Lecturer at the School of Geography, University of Nottingham. He co-autored Writing the Rural (1994).

About this edition

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1861890222
• ISBN 13: 9781861890221
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 324