Understanding Ordinary Landscapes

Groth, Paul and Todd W. Bressi (eds.)

ISBN 10: 0300072031 / ISBN 13: 9780300072037

Published by New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997, 1997

About this Item

8vo, card covers, ix, 272pp., b/w ills. 2nd printing. VG+: mild rubbing and dust soiling to the covers; clean text; solid binding.

Seller Inventory # ATLPGTWBUOL

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Understanding Ordinary Landscapes
• Publisher: New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300072031
• ISBN 13: 9780300072037
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Design

About this title

Synopsis

How does knowledge of everyday environments foster deeper understanding of both past and present cultural life? In this book authorities in social history, architectural history, American studies, cultural geography, and landscape architecture explore aspects of the emergent field of cultural landscape studies, demonstrating the value of investigating the many meanings of ordinary settings.

While traditional studies in this field have been of rural life, most of the authors in this collection take on urban subjects, and with them the challenging issues of power, class, race, ethnicity, subculture, and cultural opposition. There is a chapter by J.B. Jackson, the field’s foremost proponent and exemplar, on the nature of the vernacular house and the garage. Some of the other contributors include James Borchert on the social stratification of Cleveland suburbs; Rina Swentzell on a comparison of native and federal environments on the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico; Reuben Rainey on the Gettysburg battlefield; Dolores Hayden on the potentials of ethnic landscape documentation; and Denis Cosgrove on spectacle and society. Still other authors Wilbur Zelinsky, Richard Walker, Dell Upton, David Lowenthal, Jay Appleton, and Robert Riley―explore the problems and potentials of vision and space as sources of social interpretation. The book also includes a historical review of recent trends in the field of landscape studies and an annotated bibliography.

From the Back Cover

Whereas traditional studies in this field have been of rural life, most of the authors in this collection take on urban subjects, and with them the challenging issues of power, class, race, ethnicity, subculture, and cultural opposition. J. B. Jackson, the field's foremost proponent and practitioner, writes on the nature of the vernacular house and the garage. Other contributors include James Borchert on the social stratification of Cleveland suburbs, Rina Swentzell on Native American and U.S. government environments among the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico, Reuben Rainey on the Gettysburg battlefield, Dolores Hayden on the potentials of urban landscape documentation, and Denis Cosgrove on spectacle and society. Still other authors - Wilbur Zelinsky, Richard Walker, Dell Upton, David Lowenthal, Jay Appleton, and Robert Riley - explore vision and space as sources of social interpretation. The book also includes a historical review of recent trends in the field of landscape studies and an annotated bibliography.