Ideas of Landscape

Ideas of Landscape discusses the current theory and practice of landscape archaeology and offers an alternative agenda for landscape archaeology that maps more closely onto the established empirical strengths of landscape study and has more contemporary relevance.

• The first historical assessment of a critical period in archaeology
• Takes as its focus the so-called English landscape tradition -- the ideological underpinnings of which come from English Romanticism, via the influence of the “father of landscape history”: W. G. Hoskins
• Argues that the strengths and weaknesses of landscape archaeology can be traced back to the underlying theoretical discontents of Romanticism
• Offers an alternative agenda for landscape archaeology that maps more closely onto the established empirical strengths of landscape study and has more contemporary relevance

List of Figures.

Acknowledgements.

The Argument.

Preface: Thinking about Swaledale.

1. Introduction.

2. Lonely as a Cloud.

3. A Good Pair of Boots.

4. The Loss of Innocence.

5. Landscape Archaeology Today.

6. The Politics of Landscape.

7. Conclusion.

Glossary.

References.

Index

"I have always found Johnson’s work … extremely inviting, engaging and thoughtful. Ideas of Landscape is no exception." (Cambridge Archaeological Journal, October 2008)

“One might suggest that in this excellent work, Johnson has written an archaeology of knowledge concerning landscape studies. A glossary and illustrations add meaningfully to a work of much industry … Highly recommended.” (Choice)

“Ideas of Landscape is a towering contribution--shall we say, a high vantage point from which one can
survey a scholarly landscape?” (Canadian Journal of Archaeology)

Matthew Johnson is Professor of Archaeology, University of Southampton, and author of Behind the Castle Gate (2002), Archaeological Theory: An Introduction (Blackwell, 1999), An Archaeology of Capitalism (Blackwell, 1996), and Housing Culture (1993). Ideas of Landscape offers an engaging discussion of the theory and practice of landscape archaeology today. Drawing on his local experience, Matthew Johnson focuses on the so-called English landscape tradition and discusses why it is so distinctive: it stands at some distance from North American and other approaches, in which “theory” plays a more prominent role. Johnson identifies the origins of this tradition in English Romanticism, through the influence of the “father of landscape history” W.G. Hoskins among others, and argues that the strengths and weaknesses of landscape archaeology can be traced back to the underlying theoretical discontents of the Romantic movement. He offers an alternative agenda, which maps more closely on to the established empirical strengths of landscape study and is more relevant both to the thrust of interdisciplinary landscape studies and to contemporary social concerns. Passionately and accessibly written, this engaging book takes up a crucial strand in archaeological thinking and examines it critically for the first time. "I read Matthew Johnson's Ideas of Landscape (Blackwell) with intense interest. It discusses the theory and practice of landscape archaeology and the Romantic English landscape tradition, boldly taking on received opinion about figures such as Wordsworth and WG Hoskins, and making us think hard about what we can know about the past, why we want to know it, and how we may be misled about it. It's an original, informative, and well-argued work, accessible to the general reader, and both worrying and illuminating."
–Margaret Drabble, Times Literary Supplement

"Ideas of Landscape is a challenging and accessible contribution to an expanding theoretical and historical field. Mobilizing the English topographical tradition of scholarship, centred on the writings of W.G. Hoskins, the book positions a critical understanding of landscape, as both cultural representation and physical reality, at the centre of the study of the past and its meanings in the present."
–Stephen Daniels, Professor of Cultural Geography, University of Nottingham

"Matthew Johnson writes an archaeology of knowledge for landscape studies. He enables us to know what to study next by knowing how the field was formed and the mistakes its practitioners made. Both a deconstruction and a forecast, Johnson's volume ranks with the new books on race by Orser, on colonialism by Schrire, and with his own foundational An Archaeology of Capitalism. With these books historical archaeology is mature."
–Mark P. Leone, Professor of Anthropology, University of Maryland