Ideas of Landscape - Hardcover

Johnson, Matthew

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1405101598 ISBN 13: 9781405101592

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006

Synopsis

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.

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• 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

About this title

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).

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1405101598
• ISBN 13: 9781405101592
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 268