I N F O - E C O - B O O K L I S T - Doors of Perception 3 (1995)
Landscape and Memory
The Future of Work and Power
author: Schama, Simon
publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1995
language: English text
pages: 624 pp.
tip from: John Thackara, Kristi van Riet
isbn: 0-679-40255-1
category: 3 - Behaviour / Culture
What do we see in our mind's eye when we talk about `nature'? Where are the origins of those images that haunt our minds - of the forest primeval, the river of life, the sacred mountain? Are they myths, or were they once real places? Opening a radically new and original path into history, Simon Schama explores the scenery of our Western culture, both real landscapes and landscapes of the mind that have given us our sense of homeland - the dark woods of our imagined origins. What unfolds is a series of compelling journeys through space and time. Powerful and even disturbing as some of these myths are, Schama offers them as a celebration rather than a lament, a correction to the pessimistic view that the West has treated nature as mere machinery. Instead, he tells stories of `guardians of memory', foresters and mountain-sculptors, obelisk-haulers and boatmen-poets, who have passed on the traditions of he Western vision of nature from generation to generation. New York
|