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A pioneer in landscape studies takes us on a tour of landscapes
past and present to show how our surroundings reflect our culture.
"No one who cares deeply about landscape issues can overlook the
scores of brilliant insights and challenges to the mind, eye and
conscience contained in Discovering the Vernacular Landscape. It is
a book to be deeply cherished and to be read and pondered many
times."-Wilbur Zelinsky, Landscape "While it is fashionable to
speak of man as alienated from his environment, Mr. Jackson shows
us all the ties that bind us to it, consciously or unconsciously.
He teaches us to speak intelligently-rather than polemically or
wistfully-of the sense of place."-Anatole Broyard, New York Times
"This book is a vital and seminal text: do beg, borrow or buy
it."-Robert Holden, Landscape Design (London) "Incisive and
overpoweringly influential. It will probably tell you something
about how you live that you've never thought about."-Thomas Hine,
The Philadelphia Inquirer "No one can come close to Jackson in his
unique combination of historical scholarship and field experience,
in his deep knowledge of European high culture as well as of
American trailer parks, in his archivist's nose for the unusual
fact and his philosopher's mind for the trenchant, surprising
question."-Yi-Fu Tuan
J.B. Jackson, a pioneer in the field of landscape studies, here
takes us on a tour of American landscapes past and present, showing
how our surroundings reflect important changes in our culture.
Because we live in urban and industrial environments that are
constantly evolving, says Jackson, time and movement are
increasingly important to us and place and permanence are less so.
We no longer gain a feeling of community from where we live or
where we assemble but from common work hours, habits, and customs.
Jackson examines the new vernacular landscape of trailers, parking
lots, trucks, loading docks, and suburban garages, which all
reflect this emphasis on mobility and transience; he redefines
roads as scenes of work and leisure and social intercourse-as
places, rather than as means of getting to places; he argues that
public parks are now primarily for children, older people, and
nature lovers, while more mobile or gregarious people seek
recreation in shopping malls, in the street, and in sports arenas;
he traces the development of dwellings in New Mexico from
prehistoric Pueblo villages to mobile homes; and he criticizes the
tendency of some environmentalists to venerate nature instead of
interacting with it and learning to share it with others in
temporary ways. Written with his customary lucidity and elegance,
this book reveals Jackson's passion for vernacular culture, his
insights into a style of life that blurs the boundaries between
work and leisure, between middle and working classes, and between
public and private spaces.
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