Landscape History investigates the profound ways landscapes influence human culture, thought, and creativity. It explores how our environment shapes literature, philosophy, and cultural identities worldwide, highlighting that landscapes are not merely backdrops, but active forces.
The book examines how landscapes serve as symbolic canvases, imbued with cultural meanings reflecting identity and memory. It also delves into how encounters with diverse terrains spark philosophical inquiries about humanity's place in the universe, existentialism, and consciousness.
The book unfolds in three parts, beginning with key concepts like environmental determinism and cultural landscape theory. It then presents case studies from various regions and historical periods, such as the pastoral landscape's impact on Romantic poetry and the urban environment's influence on modernist literature.
Finally, it synthesizes these arguments, discussing the implications of landscape history for environmental conservation, cultural preservation, and national identity. This interdisciplinary approach, drawing from literature, history, geography, philosophy, and art history, seeks to bridge scholarly research with general readership, providing a comprehensive understanding of our relationship with the environment.
