"It is no exaggeration to say that John Brookes transformed twentieth-century garden design, not only in his native Britain but throughout the world. He fundamentally changed the way people think about their gardens. In his first book, Room Outside, in 1969, he wrote, 'A garden is essentially a place for use by people not a static picture created by plants; plants provide the props, the colour and texture, but the garden is the stage and its design should be determined by the uses it is intended to fulfil.' Today, nearly fifty years on, he emphasises the importance of reconciling nature and the character of a landscape with the needs and visions of the people living in it. Over those fifty years he has designed gardens - and taught garden design - in the United States, Canada and South America, in Russia and Japan, in Iran and Kashmir, and all over Europe - always consulting the vernacular of an area, its materials and how they are used, as well as its plants. Now, in A Landscape Legacy John Brookes tells the story of his life and work and reflects on how his thinking about garden design, and design generally, has developed." -- Provided by publisher.

"Some 1,500 years ago, Polynesian seafarers discovered and settled the Hawaiian Islands, spawning a culture that flourished in isolation until Europeans arrived in the late eighteenth century. Pre-contact Hawaiian civilization is represented by a rich legacy of archaeological sites, many of which have been preserved and are accessible to the public. This volume provides for the first time an authoritative handbook to the most important of those archaeological treasures." "The fifty sites covered in this book are distributed over all of the main islands and include heiau (temples), habitation sites, irrigated and dryland agricultural complexes, fishponds, petroglyphs, and several post-contact (early nineteenth-century) sites. Site locations are shown on individual island maps, and detailed plans are provided for several sites."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Outstanding Academic Title for 2007, Choice Magazine Many American democratic ideals are embodied in the public spaces of its cities, especially in Washington, D.C. In L'Enfant's Legacy architect and scholar Michael Bednar explores the public spaces of the nation's capital, examining the context of the surrounding architecture and the roles of the spaces in the changing functional life of the city. Bednar examines the ways in which L'Enfant's innovative plan of 1791, along with later developments, symbolizes and encourages democratic freedoms and traditions. In the spaces of Capitol Square, citizens expect to encounter their government directly in a dignified setting, a symbolic public forum. On the White House grounds they expect to meet the president where he works and lives. At the National Mall—America's front lawn—citizens exercise their rights of assembly and free speech, as well as play football, eat lunch, and socialize. From historic Lincoln Square, Dupont Circle, and Judiciary Square to the newly developed Freedom Plaza, Pershing Park, and Market Square, Bednar's thoughtful study provides a fresh perspective on the role of public space in the expression of democratic ideals.

Charles S. Aiken, a native of Mississippi who was born a few miles from Oxford, has been thinking and writing about the geography of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County for more than thirty years. William Faulkner and the Southern Landscape is the culmination of that long-term scholarly project. It is a fresh approach to a much-studied writer and a provocative meditation on the relationship between literary imagination and place. Four main geographical questions shape Aiken's journey to the family seat of the Compsons and the Snopeses. What patterns and techniques did Faulkner use--consciously or subconsciously--to convert the real geography of Lafayette County into a fictional space? Did Faulkner intend Yoknapatawpha to serve as a microcosm of the American South? In what ways does the historical geography of Faulkner's birthplace correspond to that of the fictional world he created? Finally, what geographic legacy has Faulkner left us through the fourteen novels he set in Yoknapatawpha? With an approach, methodology, and sources primarily derived from historical geography, Aiken takes the reader on a tour of Faulkner's real and imagined worlds. The result is an informed reading of Faulkner's life and work and a refined understanding of the relation of literary worlds to the real places that inspire them.

Built in the 1930s on worn-out tobacco land between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the planned community of Greenbelt, Maryland, was designed to provide homes for low-income families as well as jobs for its builders. In keeping with the spirit of the New Deal, the physical design of the town contributed to cooperation among its residents, and the government further encouraged cooperation by helping residents form business cooperatives and social organizations. In Greenbelt, Maryland, Cathy D. Knepper offers the first comprehensive look at this important social experiment. Knepper describes the origins of Greenbelt, the ideology of its founders, and their struggle to create a cooperative planned community in the capitalist United States. She tells how the town, saved at one point by the intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt, struggled through the McCarthy years, when it was branded "socialistic" and even "communistic." In conclusion, she provides a timely analysis of those qualities that not only helped the town survive but also served as the model for currents in urban development that have once again come into vogue in such movements as the new urbanism and traditional neighborhood development.

French St. Louis places St. Louis, Missouri, in a broad colonial context, shedding light on its francophone history.

The question "Do black landscapes matter?" cuts deep to the core of American history. From the plantations of slavery to contemporary segregated cities, from freedman villages to northern migrations for freedom, the nation’s landscape bears the detritus of diverse origins. Black landscapes matter because they tell the truth. In this vital new collection, acclaimed landscape designer and public artist Walter Hood assembles a group of notable landscape architecture and planning professionals and scholars to probe how race, memory, and meaning intersect in the American landscape. Essayists examine a variety of U.S. places—ranging from New Orleans and Charlotte to Milwaukee and Detroit—exposing racism endemic in the built environment and acknowledging the widespread erasure of black geographies and cultural landscapes. Through a combination of case studies, critiques, and calls to action, contributors reveal the deficient, normative portrayals of landscape that affect communities of color and question how public design and preservation efforts can support people in these places. In a culture in which historical omissions and specious narratives routinely provoke disinvestment in minority communities, creative solutions by designers, planners, artists, and residents are necessary to activate them in novel ways. Black people have built and shaped the American landscape in ways that can never be fully known. Black Landscapes Matter is a timely and necessary reminder that without recognizing and reconciling these histories and spaces, America’s past and future cannot be understood.