Landscape and Identity: Geographies of Nation and Class in England

Description

In England, perhaps more than most places, people's engagement with the landscape is deeply felt and has often been expressed through artistic media. The popularity of walking and walking clubs perhaps provides the most compelling evidence of the important role landscape plays in people's lives. Not only is individual identity rooted in experiencing landscape, but under the multiple impacts of social fragmentation, global economic restructuring and European integration, membership in recreational walking groups helps recover a sense of community. Moving between the 1750s and the present, this transdisciplinary book explores the powerful role of landscape in the formation of historical class relations and national identity. The author's direct field experience of fell walking in the Lake District and with various locally based clubs includes investigation of the roles gender and race play. She shows how the politics of access to open spaces has implications beyond the immediate geographical areas considered and ultimately involves questions of citizenship.

Wendy Joy Darby Independent Scholar

'A pioneering contribution to the cultural study of landscape. Darby brings broad and imaginative erudition to the subject. The book is engaging, witty, and a pleasure to read.' Joan Vincent, Barnard College, Columbia University 'A fascinating book most certainly a goood read much good material' Journal of European Area Studies 'This text predates the current crisis in the countryside realting to foot and mouth disease. Yet it provides an excellent context and places the competing interests and agendas which are played out in the rural areas of England today in a broad historical setting. I have cerainly learned a great deal about two well-loved and very popular regions of England.' International Journal of Heritage Studies 'This is a stimulating and useful book Wendy Joy Darby is sharp and unsentimental.' Landscape History 'Lively and engaging.' Contemporary British History