Landscape and Memory

Schama presents a wide-ranging meditation on the role of nature in Western civilization from ancient times to the present. In an enormously rich, labyrinthine survey, Columbia University humanities professor Schama, author of prize-winning books on the French Revolution (Citizens) and Dutch culture (The Embarrassment of Riches), explores the role of landscape in myth, art and culture. Full of wondrous and forgotten lore, his mind-expanding study links the Egyptian myth of Osiris, sacrified king-god of the Nile, to pagan traditions of the sacred stream, Christian baptism and modern images of the fertile, fatal river. He follows woodlands-based myths of utopian primitivism from Tacitus through German Romanticism, the work of contemporary show more painter Anselm Kiefer and the militant nationalism that culminated in Hitler. Ranging freely over Western literature, history, art and mythology, Schama examines Mount Rushmore as an icon of democracy, unfenced suburban lawns as symbols of social solidarity, Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers in Rome, Sir Walter Raleigh's journey to Guiana, Thoreau's meditations at Walden Pond, Swiss climber Horace Benedict de Saussure's ascent of Mount Blanc in 1787. Arguing that the boundaries between the wild and the cultivated are more flexible than is commonly assumed, this synthesis maps an uncharted geography of the imagination.

Schama argues persuasively that Europeans and Americans have been shaped by nature as much as they themselves have shaped nature. He discusses the impact of sacred or mysterious rivers, forests, and mountains in forging the Western imagination. Individuals discussed include the expected (e.g., Henry David Thoreau) as well as some surprises (e.g., Louis XIV and Hitler). The fact that nature has had a huge impact on Western history is not a startling new revelation, but Schama is a marvelous writer and an impressive scholar. He brings together familiar and not-so-familiar stories to create a fresh reappraisal of more than 2000 years of history. show less

This book is a fascinating treatise on the role nature (specifically wood, water, and rock) has played in Western culture. Art and history professor at Columbia University, Schama considered this the one book he needed to write. He expertly touches on so many examples of our environment's influence on our collective memory that the book is difficult to describe- everything from Hitler's obsession with the forests of Europe and the battles fought to get Susan B. Anthony on Mount Rushmore, to Western lust for Egyptian obelisks and dance parties held on the massive stumps of California Sequoias in the mid-nineteenth century. This work is also, with its classical layout and type font and its many excellent illustrations, one of the most show more beautifully designed books I've ever seen. Highly recommended. show less

Got it. Finally. Took me one and a half years to read that fucker! Actually, I stopped after the most - and only - relevant part, the one about ROCK, leaving the summary part out.
Doesn't make for smooth bedside reading... My eyes would capitulate after a couple of pages.
It is highly interesting and Schama tries hard to make the reading entertaining, but it remains scientific and in parts highly speculative. His line of reasoning is not always easy to follow and I couldn't always detect a red line between the places that he presents and how they are perceived and how they mirror the society of a certain time.
Lastly, some contents have been put in quite arbitrarily - at least that's what it seems to me.

A rich and satisfying look into the European heritage. Beautifully written, lyrical prose that is a joy to read.

I find this a hard book to finish. It is one of those books it seems difficult to get into although the material is interesting and the thought good.

Very interesting historical study of how topography and landscape shaped the culture and laws of modern societies.

fascinating but pretentious