Wasteland: A History - Hardcover

Di Palma, Vittoria

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300197799 ISBN 13: 9780300197792

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2014

Synopsis

In Wasteland, Vittoria Di Palma takes on the “anti-picturesque,” offering an account of landscapes that have traditionally drawn fear and contempt. Di Palma argues that a convergence of beliefs, technologies, institutions, and individuals in 18th-century England resulted in the formulation of cultural attitudes that continue to shape the ways we evaluate landscape today. Staking claims on the aesthetics of disgust, she addresses how emotional response has been central to the development of ideas about nature, beauty, and sublimity. With striking illustrations reaching back to the 1600s―husbandry manuals, radical pamphlets, gardening treatises, maps, and landscape paintings― Wasteland spans the fields of landscape studies, art and architectural history, geography, history, and the history of science and technology. In stirring prose, Di Palma tackles our conceptions of such hostile territories as swamps, mountains, and forests, arguing that they are united not by any essential physical characteristics but by the aversive reactions they inspire.

About this title

Book Description:

In an eloquent history of landscape and land use, Vittoria Di Palma takes on the “anti-picturesque”—how landscapes that elicit fear and disgust have shaped our conceptions of beauty and the sublime.

About the Author:

Vittoria Di Palma is assistant professor in the School of Architecture of the University of Southern California.
 

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0300197799
• ISBN 13: 9780300197792
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 280