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Distributed for Reaktion Books

Political Landscape

The Art History of Nature

We all know what "the political landscape" is, and politicians and journalists never tire of referring to it. But in this ingenious and original book, Martin Warnke takes that well-worn metaphor literally and uses it to reveal just how politicized the real landscape of continental Europe has been for centuries. The author finds his evidence of humanity’s intervention in nature in the form of monuments and milestones, gardens, roads and border crossings, in landscape paintings and maps – even, in fact, in the anthropomorphic interpretations once given to formations of hills and rocks.

The Political Landscape is underpinned with a fascinating array of examples and illustrations, many of which will be new even to experts in the art of landscape and related disciplines.

Distribution by the University of Chicago Press only to customers in the USA and Canada. Customers elsewhere should visit the UK website of Reaktion Books.


168 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2004

Essays in Art and Culture

Culture Studies

Geography: Social and Political Geography


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Table of Contents

Preface
1. The Occupation of the Plain
2. Hills and Castles
3. From Battlefield to War Landscape
4. Nature’s Freedom as Political Freedom
5. Natural Forces and Natural Forms
6. Political Nature Imagery
Conclusion
References
List of Illustrations

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