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.
- ISBN13 9781861890221
- Publish Date 16 November 1998
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 29 May 2015
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Reaktion Books
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 324
- Language English