Landscape and Englishness (Reaktion Books - Picturing History)

Landscape has been central to definitions of Englishness for centuries. David Matless argues that 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. Landscape and Englishness is extensively illustrated and draws on a wide range of material - 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 down 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. " ... 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." Times Literary Supplement Landscape Has Long Been Central To Definitions Of Englishness. Extensively Illustrated, Landscape And Englishness Offers A New Reading Of 20th Century English Landscape. Introduction: Versions Of Landscape And Englishness -- Landscape For A New Englishness -- Ordering England -- Arts Of Living: Landscape And Citizenship 1918-39 -- Organic England -- English Ecologies -- The Organic English Body -- Landscapes Of War And Reconstruction -- Landscapes Of War -- Geographies Of The Reconstruction -- Citizens In Reconstruction -- Festivals And Realignments -- Landscape And Englishness In An Altered State. David Matless. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 349-356) And Index. Landscape has been central to definitions of Englishness for centuries. This title argues that 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.