Landscape is now on the agenda in a new way. The increasing interest in justice, power and the political landscape expresses a sea change occurring in the meaning of landscape itself, from landscape as scenery to landscape as polity and place. As Lionella Scazzosi argues "The meaning of the term 'landscape' has become broader than that of a view or panorama, which characterized many national protection laws and policies until the middle of the 20th century, and that of environment or nature, to which it has often been limited during the recent years of environmentalist battles." This is reflected in the new European Landscape Convention, for which: "'Landscape' means an area, as perceived by people." The tide thus has turned towards J. B. Jackson's view of landscape as not "a scenic or ecological entity but as a political or cultural entity, changing in the course of history." It is in this socio-political context that it becomes necessary to consider the role of power, and the importance of justice, in the shaping of the landscape as an area of practice and performance with both cultural and environmental implications. This book was previously published as two special issues of Landscape Research.

Originally published in 1984 Nature's Ideological Language examines the common ideological roots of environmental reclamation and nature preservation. In the general context of European, British and American historical experience, the Jutland heaths of Denmark are taken as a concrete example for a general critique of European and American policy concerning the use of landscape. Two sets of contradictions are highlighted: ideological and practical between development and preservation; and those between scientific, historical aesthetic and recreational motivation for preservation. The book is based on a study of the Jutland heath from 1750 to the present, focusing on the Danish perception of the area as expressed in literary art and in economic journals, topographies and government reports. Against this background, the development of the modern conception of nature is traced and its ideological implications and planning consequences discussed. As a study of humanistic geography, this book will be of interest to geographers, conservationists and planners.

The idea that the heritage of nature is fundamentally cultural is provocative to many, but it is becoming increasingly accepted in the context of heritage preservation. It is argued here that a person's perspective on natural vs. cultural heritage as a contested patrimony is, to some extent, governed by one's intellectual and geographical position. In discourses influenced by the natural sciences culture is a heritage of nature, whereas in those deriving from the humanities and social sciences, nature is defined socio-culturally. There is also, however, a geographical dimension to how one looks at the nature culture relation. From at least the time of Aristotle, the North has been identified with a cultural heritage thought to derive from the northern natural environment. It was no longer culture, as represented by the architectural monuments of the South, but the natural landscape that provided the measure for both natural and cultural heritage, as the natural landscape and its ecosystems were put in focus. This essay provides a contemporary picture of the long-standing contestation between natural and cultural heritage that provided the basis for the northern perspective taken in these essays. This book was previously published as a special issue of The International Journal of Heritage Studies.

Originally published in 1984 Nature's Ideological Language examines the common ideological roots of environmental reclamation and nature preservation. In the general context of European, British and American historical experience, the Jutland heaths of Denmark are taken as a concrete example for a general critique of European and American policy concerning the use of landscape. Two sets of contradictions are highlighted: ideological and practical between development and preservation; and those between scientific, historical aesthetic and recreational motivation for preservation. The book is based on a study of the Jutland heath from 1750 to the present, focusing on the Danish perception of the area as expressed in literary art and in economic journals, topographies and government reports. Against this background, the development of the modern conception of nature is traced and its ideological implications and planning consequences discussed. As a study of humanistic geography, this book will be of interest to geographers, conservationists and planners.

The idea that the heritage of nature is fundamentally cultural is provocative to many, but it is becoming increasingly accepted in the context of heritage preservation. It is argued here that a person's perspective on natural vs. cultural heritage as a contested patrimony is, to some extent, governed by one's intellectual and geographical position. In discourses influenced by the natural sciences culture is a heritage of nature, whereas in those deriving from the humanities and social sciences, nature is defined socio-culturally. There is also, however, a geographical dimension to how one looks at the nature culture relation. From at least the time of Aristotle, the North has been identified with a cultural heritage thought to derive from the northern natural environment. It was no longer culture, as represented by the architectural monuments of the South, but the natural landscape that provided the measure for both natural and cultural heritage, as the natural landscape and its ecosystems were put in focus. This essay provides a contemporary picture of the long-standing contestation between natural and cultural heritage that provided the basis for the northern perspective taken in these essays. This book was previously published as a special issue of The International Journal of Heritage Studies.

Landscape is now on the agenda in a new way. The increasing interest in justice, power and the political landscape expresses a sea change occurring in the meaning of landscape itself, from landscape as scenery to landscape as polity and place. As Lionella Scazzosi argues "The meaning of the term 'landscape' has become broader than that of a view or panorama, which characterized many national protection laws and policies until the middle of the 20th century, and that of environment or nature, to which it has often been limited during the recent years of environmentalist battles." This is reflected in the new European Landscape Convention, for which: "'Landscape' means an area, as perceived by people." The tide thus has turned towards J. B. Jackson's view of landscape as not "a scenic or ecological entity but as a political or cultural entity, changing in the course of history." It is in this socio-political context that it becomes necessary to consider the role of power, and the importance of justice, in the shaping of the landscape as an area of practice and performance with both cultural and environmental implications. This book was previously published as two special issues of Landscape Research.

"Landscape, Nature, and the Body Politic" explores the origins and lasting influences of two contesting but intertwined discourses that persist today when we use the words landscape, country, scenery, nature, national. In the first sense, the land is a physical and bounded body of terrain upon which the nation state is constructed (e.g., the purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain, from sea to shining sea). In the second, the country is constituted through its people and established through time and precedence (e.g., land where our fathers died, land of the Pilgrims' pride). Kenneth Robert Olwig's extended exploration of these discourses is a masterful work of scholarship both broad and deep, which opens up new avenues of thinking in the areas of geography, literature, theater, history, political science, law, and environmental studies.
Olwig tracks these ideas though Anglo-American history, starting with seventeenth-century conflicts between the Stuart kings and the English Parliament, and the Stuart dream of uniting Scotland with England and Wales into one nation on the island of Britain. He uses a royal production of a Ben Jonson masque, with stage sets by architect Inigo Jones, as a touchstone for exploring how the notion of "landscape" expands from artful stage scenery to a geopolitical ideal. Olwig pursues these contested concepts of the body politic from Europe to America and to global politics, illuminating a host of topics, from national parks and environmental planning to theories of polity and virulent nationalistic movements.

"Landscape, Nature, and the Body Politic" explores the origins and lasting influences of two contesting but intertwined discourses that persist today when we use the words landscape, country, scenery, nature, national. In the first sense, the land is a physical and bounded body of terrain upon which the nation state is constructed (e.g., the purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain, from sea to shining sea). In the second, the country is constituted through its people and established through time and precedence (e.g., land where our fathers died, land of the Pilgrims' pride). Kenneth Robert Olwig's extended exploration of these discourses is a masterful work of scholarship both broad and deep, which opens up new avenues of thinking in the areas of geography, literature, theater, history, political science, law, and environmental studies.
Olwig tracks these ideas though Anglo-American history, starting with seventeenth-century conflicts between the Stuart kings and the English Parliament, and the Stuart dream of uniting Scotland with England and Wales into one nation on the island of Britain. He uses a royal production of a Ben Jonson masque, with stage sets by architect Inigo Jones, as a touchstone for exploring how the notion of "landscape" expands from artful stage scenery to a geopolitical ideal. Olwig pursues these contested concepts of the body politic from Europe to America and to global politics, illuminating a host of topics, from national parks and environmental planning to theories of polity and virulent nationalistic movements.