Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

People have shaped the landscape around them since prehistoric times, creating places as diverse in form and meaning as Stonehenge, the Forbidden City of Beijing, Versailles, and New York's Central Park. Overflowing with hundreds of plans, drawings, and photographs, many created specially for this book, this engrossing volume spans the history of landscape design and reveals a great deal about the development of societies, and how cities, parks, and gardens embody cultural values.Examining famous and lesser-known sites, some now vanished, this comprehensive survey leads the reader from ancient Egyptian royal cemeteries to the magnificent gardens of Renaissance and Baroque Europe, and from great 18th-century English estates and American public gardens to the earthworks and other landscape projects of today.A feast for the historian, landscape designer, and gardener alike, this new book has no equal.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Foreword (p. 16)
• Introduction: The Shaping of Space; the Meaning of Place (p. 20)
• Chapter 1 Magic, Myth, and Nature: Landscapes of Prehistoric, Early Ancient, and Contemporary Peoples (p. 26)
• I. Caves and Circles: Sustaining Life and Discerning Cosmic Order
• II. Architectural Mountains and the Earth's First Cities: Landscape as Urban Power in Early Ancient Civilizations
• III. Ritual and Landscape in Prehistoric Greece: Earth Goddess and the Mighty Lords
• IV. Cosmology in the Landscapes of the Americas: Spirits of Earth and Sky
• Chapter 2 Nature, Art, and Reason: Landscape Design in the Classical World (p. 58)
• I. Gods and Humans: The New Contract with Nature
• II. Polis and Acropolis: City and Temple in the Greek Landscape
• III. Empire: Hellenism and Roman Urbanism
• IV. Garden and Villa: The Art of Landscape in Ancient Rome
• Chapter 3 Visions of Paradise: Landscape Design as Symbol and Metaphor (p. 97)
• I. Paradise as a Literary Topos: Gardens of God and Gardens of Love
• II. Paradise on Earth: The Islamic Garden
• III. Paradise Contained: Walled Cities and Walled Gardens of the European Middle Ages
• Chapter 4 Classicism Reborn: Landscape Ideals of the Renaissance in Italy and France (p. 125)
• I. Petrarch, Alberti, and Colonna: Humanism and the Landscape
• II. Bramante and the Rediscovery of Axial Planning: Gardens of Sixteenth-Century Italy
• III. Axial Planning on an Urban Scale: The Development of Renaissance Rome
• IV. Currents of Fashion: The Transformation of the Italian Garden in France
• V. The Evolution of French Urbanization and Garden Style: Paris in the Time of Henry IV
• Chapter 5 Power and Glory: The Genius of Le Notre and the Grandeur of the Baroque (p. 165)
• I. The Making of Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles: Andre Le Notre
• II. The Garden as Theater: Italian Baroque and Rococo Gardens
• Chapter 6 Expanding Horizons: Court and City in the European Grand Manner (p. 194)
• I. French and Italian Exports: The Application of Classical and Baroque Design Principles to Gardens in the Netherlands, England, Germany, and Beyond
• II. The Heroic City: Expressions of Classical and Baroque Urbanism
• III. Nature's Paradise: America in the Colonial and Federal Periods
• Chapter 7 Sense and Sensibility: Landscapes of the Age of Reason, Romanticism, and Revolution (p. 232)
• I. The Genius of the Place: Forging a New Landscape Style Through Literature, Art, and Theory
• II. Leaping the Fence: The Transformation of the English Landscape into a Pastoral Idyll with Political Meaning
• III. Remaking England: Capability Brown, Professional Improver
• IV. Nature's Canvas: English Philosophers and Practitioners of the Picturesque
• V. Landscapes of Moral Virtue and Exotic Fantasy: The French Picturesque
• VI. Designing Nature's Garden: The Landscapes of Thomas Jefferson
• VII. The Landscape of Mind and Soul: Goethe and Wordsworth
• Chapter 8 Nature as Muse: The Gardens of China and Japan (p. 281)
• I. Mountains, Lakes, and Islands: Intimations of Immortality in the Chinese Garden
• II. Tea, Moss, and Stones: Temple and Palace Gardens of Japan
• Chapter 9 Expanding Cities and New Social Institutions: The Democratization of Landscape Design (p. 311)
• I. Botanical Science, the Gardenesque Style, and People's Parks: Landscape Design in Victorian England
• II. Redefining Rural America: The Influence of Andrew Jackson Downing
• III. Honoring History and Repose for the Dead: Commemorative Landscapes and Rural Cemeteries
• IV. The New Metropolis: Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux as Park Builders and City Planners
• Chapter 10 Industrial Age Civilization: Birth of the Modern City, Beaux-Arts America, and National Parks (p. 357)
• I. Haussmann's Paris: Birth of the Modern City
• II. The City Beautiful: Monumental Urbanism in Beaux-Arts America
• III. America the Beautiful: The National Park System
• Chapter 11 Landscape as Aesthetic Experience: The Arts and Crafts Movement and the Revival of the Formal Garden (p. 375)
• I. Modernity Challenged: Ruskin's Influence, the Past Revalued, and Italy's Long Shadow
• II. The Edwardian and Post-Edwardian English Garden: Aristocracy's Golden Afternoon and Twilight
• III. Design Synthesis: The End of the American Country Place Era
• Chapter 12 Social Utopias: Modernism and Regional Planning (p. 402)
• I. Urban Expansion: Town Planning for the Machine Age in Britain and Continental Europe
• II. Greenbelt Towns or Suburbs?: Creating the American Metropolis
• Chapter 13 A New Landscape Aesthetic: The Modernist Garden (p. 434)
• I. Transitional Experimentation: Design Idioms of the Early Twentieth Century
• II. Abstract Art and the Functional Landscape: Gardens for Modern Living
• Chapter 14 Home, Commerce, and Entertainment: Landscapes of Consumerism (p. 457)
• I. A Home for the Family: The Landscape of Suburbia
• II. Commerce and Entertainment: Shopping Malls and Theme Parks
• Chapter 15 Holding on and Letting Grow: Landscape as Preservation, Conservation, Art, Sport, and Theory (p. 470)
• I. Preserving the Past: Place as Heritage, Identity, Tourist Landscape, and New Urbanist Community
• II. Conserving Nature: Landscape Design as Environmental Science and Art
• III. Earthworks, Golf Courses, Philosophical Models, and Poetic Metaphors: Landscape as Art Form, Sport, Deconstructivism, and Phenomenology
• Chapter 16 The Weaving of Place and the Geography of Flows: Landscape as Bodily Experience and Vernacular Expression (p. 502)
• I. Body and Space: The Weaving of Place
• II. Cultural Geography: The Loom of Landscape
• Glossary (p. 514)
• Bibliography (p. 520)
• Index (p. 534)
• Photograph Credits (p. 544)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Perhaps best known as the founding director of New York's Central Park Conservancy, which oversaw and funded the park's revitalization, Rogers (The Forests and Wetlands of New York City) here presents a comprehensive survey of landscape design. Viewing her subject as the art that modifies and shapes nature, she explores the cultural values that shape, or are embodied in, cities, parks, and gardens. Embracing all cultures and ranging from prehistoric times to the present, this book covers the broadest range of subjects implied by the title, including city planning, landscape architecture, conservation, earthworks, and other uses of land in contemporary art. While this history is international in scope, it does narrow its primary focus to the United States when it reaches the late 20th century. The photographs and especially the plans are excellent and numerous. Single pages or double-page spreads devoted to specific topics add an encyclopedic element while allowing Rogers to provide even more information, illustrations, and plans without interrupting the flow of her very readable text. Accessible to lay readers but of interest to scholars, this book could serve as the text for a comprehensive course on the history of landscape design. Highly recommended. Daniel Starr, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, former administrator of New York City's Central Park (The Forests and Wetlands of New York City), begins Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History with stone circles and ziggurats, and traces design's evolution through to today's suburbs and theme parks. An encyclopedic account of man-made landscapes around the world illustrated with a stunning 633 photos and drawings, more than half in color, the book reveals a 1720 English turf ampitheater, the "Tea, Moss and Stones" (as one chapter is titled) of Japanese gardens, the grand genius of Versailles designer Andr Le Ntre, as well as today's "Earthworks, Golf Courses, Philosophical Models, and Poetic Metaphors." It's an accessible and elegant respite. ( Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

The human shaping of the land is one of the first and most enduring of our collective cultural statements. This superbly conceived synthesis of the evolution of landscape design--the first comprehensive history in a generation--traces place-making from prehistoric land forms to postmodern earthworks and from the Far East to the far west and points in between. Rogers, an art historian who spearheaded the restoration of New York City's Central Park and now directs a new program in garden history and landscape studies at the Bard Graduate Center, demonstrates a breathtaking mastery of the changing cultural meanings of landscape over place and time. Rogers's emphatically highbrow approach emphasizes gardens and cityscapes as works of art inextricably shaped by contemporary intellectual, social, and economic developments. The text is strongly interdisciplinary and cross-cultural, written with sensitivity to design and attentive to continuities as well as change. A handsomely illustrated book for students of landscape architecture, preservation, and planning as well as for citizens who care deeply about the landscapes that surround us. Highly recommended. General readers; upper-division undergraduates through professionals. D. Schuyler Franklin and Marshall College

Booklist Review

To prepare for her post as the first administrator of New York's Central Park, distinguished art historian, expert city planner, and author Rogers sought to master the context in which the park was built and designed by taking an interdisciplinary approach to landscape architecture's historical importance, cultural influence, and societal impact. The result is her magnum opus, an eloquent, erudite, and enjoyable treatment of a discipline that heretofore concentrated on technical methodologies while eschewing the philosophical deliberations that guide it. By tracing the global development of man's relationship to the land from cave dwellers to urban developers, Rogers' anthropological orientation examines diverse ancient to contemporary landscapes in microscopic detail, revealing how, as mankind inherently strives to control nature through landscape design, the results inevitably reflect the prevailing cultural milieu. Scrupulously researched, meticulously presented, Rogers' towering achievement synthesizes the history of human culture with that of landscape design, culminating in a wondrous journey across time and place that will appeal to readers with a wide range of historical, aesthetic, gardening, and travel interests. --Carol HaggasCuisine du Jour, by Mark Knoblauch

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Trained in art history and city planning, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers is internationally recognized for her work and leadership in revitalizing public parks and gardens. Rogers was founding president of the Central Park Conservancy and of Cityscape Institute, a resource for public-private partnerships to promote creative development of outdoor urban public places. She also served as administrator of New York City's Central Park (1979-95). Her book, The Forests and Wetlands of New York City, won the John Burroughs Medal and was a National Book Award nominee. In the autumn of 2001, Rogers will inaugurate a course of study on landscape design at the Bard Center for the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture in New York City