Understanding ordinary landscapes /

Based on a 1990 symposium, this volume cogently explains the history and changing models of cultural landscape studies, including both a diverse range of methodologies and theories and a substantive array of essays that critique these approaches. Most essays are grounded in North American issues, ranging from suburbia to Chinatowns. Contributors include preeminent figures in landscape studies--J.B. Jackson, Anthony King, James Borchert, Denis Cosgrove, and Dolores Hayden (whose essay became part of her The Power of Place, 1995). Although these very scholars moved landscape to a central place in contemporary social science and humanities, their essays, unfortunately, often have not fully incorporated the richness subsequent debates have generated; one misses real engagement with work of Boyer, Sorkin, Cronon, Soja, or the new urbanists, among others. Nonetheless, the collection is an excellent place to begin reading about complex issues underpinning the study of cultural landscape as its guides interested readers toward the provocative works of its editor and contributors in the years since the symposium. The annotated bibliography, albeit slightly dated, also provides an extremely useful tool for students, academics, and professionals in related fields. Upper-division undergraduates and above. G. W. McDonogh Bryn Mawr College