Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0714843555, Paperback)

"The Garden Book" presents a diverse range of garden and landscape designers responsible for some of the most interesting and iconic gardens of all time from around the world. Gardens of Ancient Persia, the Moguls of India, and the palaces of Chinese Emperors sit side by side with contemporary gardens from the USA, Europe and Australia. Formal geometric Modernist gardens of France contrast with the traditional sweeping landscapes of the Romantic English country garden. Long-vanished wonders such as the mythical gardens of Babylon, Paradise and Eden are illustrated by artists' impressions and rare illuminated manuscripts. This volume presents 500 designers in an A-Z format that departs from the usual emphasis on genres and time periods, encouraging readers to contemplate the connections between gardens, social history and popular culture. The designers selected represent a broad variety of styles, structure and planting. Experts, as well as readers coming to garden history for the first time, should find many well-loved and familiar gardens, alongside many that are rarely explored in contemporary garden books. The gardens have beem selected in an effort to choose the appropriate work for key figures in garden design and which illustrates their influence on the traditions of gardening in many countries around the world. They range, therefore, from the palaces of kings to the all-consuming passions, bordering on obsessions, of amateur enthusiasts. Notable examples from countries with a strong tradition of garden design, France, Italy, Japan and China, as well as lesser known examples from the Pacific Rim, Poland and the Czech Republic, should complement some of the great estates of the UK and USA. In some cases, the designer has been responsible for a large number of gardens and often lesser known examples have been chosen for their importance in the development of garden design. Throughout history, the estates of the wealthy have often been where the major movements of garden design have taken place, and often the patron will develop the garden beyond what can have been expected by the original designer. Written in an easily accessible way, the text explains the chosen figure's role in the development of the garden, as well as the important changes to the garden over time. Each designer is represented by a full-page illustration, mostly in colour, of their most significant garden and an accompanying text that describes the image and discusses the type of garden and its role in the further development of the tradition. Each page includes cross-references to other designers working in a similar style, movement, or time period, as well as biographical information about the designer, and complete data on the garden reproduced.