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Since at least the Reformation, English men and women have been engaged in visiting, exploring and portraying, in words and images, the landscape of their nation. The Invention of the English Landscape examines these journeys and investigations to explore how the natural and historic English landscape was reconfigured to become a widely enjoyed cultural and leisure resource. Peter Borsay considers the manifold forces behind this transformation, such as the rise of consumer culture, the media, industrial and transport revolutions, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the Gothic revival. In doing so, he reveals the development of a powerful bond between landscape and natural identity, against the backdrop of social and political change from the early modern period to the start of the Second World War. Borsay's interdisciplinary approach demonstrates how human understandings of the natural world shaped the geography of England, and uncovers a wealth of valuable material, from novels and poems to paintings, that expose historical understandings of the landscape. This innovative approach illuminates how the English countryside and historic buildings became cultural icons behind which the nation was rallied during war-time, and explores the emergence of a post-war heritage industry that is now a definitive part of British cultural life.

The word 'park' conjures a kaleidoscope of bucolic images. Childhood frolics in urban playgrounds. Strolls through the country estates of Stourhead and Versailles. Wilderness adventures in the Serengeti. White-knuckle thrill rides at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Coney Island. The Invention of the Park explores our fascination with making parks. In a broad-ranging environmental and social history, authors Karen Jones and John Wills search for a common set of ideas that inform park design. From Greek philosophers wandering sacred groves in the ancient world to today's kids watching Mickey Mouse in Disney's Magic Kingdom, the park has inspired and thrilled in equal measure. In a work spanning all five continents and several thousand years, Jones and Wills chart the evolution of the park idea. They ponder the intersection of the green pleasure ground with notions of democracy and freedom, welfare and consumption, conservation and nature. They forward the principle of a universal park idea malleable enough to survive war and revolution. Contributing to a growing literature on global environmental history, the Invention of the Park explores how the park idea has come to transcend national boundaries and found appeal among a worldwide audience. Jones and Wills situate the park as a complex product of natural and cultural forces. Their work is of interest not just to students and scholars of environmental philosophy, history, and landscape design, but to amateur gardeners, rollercoaster 'adrenalin junkies' and all those who like to take a 'walk in the park.'

A charming and nostalgic account of Coney Island, this book offers a unique perspective on the cultural and social landscape of the famous amusement park. Featuring rare and valuable photographs and illustrations, it provides an in-depth analysis of the history and evolution of the park, its famous attractions, and the people who visited it. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Summers at the Vauxhall pleasure garden in London brought diverse entertainments to a diverse public. Picturesque walks and arbors offered a pastoral retreat from the city, while at the same time the garden's attractions indulged distinctly urban tastes for fashion, novelty, and sociability. High- and low-born alike were free to walk the paths; the proximity to strangers and the danger of dark walks were as thrilling to visitors as the fountains and fireworks. Vauxhall was the venue that made the careers of composers, inspired novelists, and showcased the work of artists. Scoundrels, sudden downpours, and extortionate ham prices notwithstanding, Vauxhall became a must-see destination for both Londoners and tourists. Before long, there were Vauxhalls across Britain and America, from York to New York, Norwich to New Orleans. This edited volume provides the first book-length study of the attractions and interactions of the pleasure garden, from the opening of Vauxhall in the seventeenth century to the amusement parks of the early twentieth. Nine essays explore the mutual influences of human behavior and design: landscape, painting, sculpture, and even transient elements such as lighting and music tacitly informed visitors how to move within the space, what to wear, how to behave, and where they might transgress. The Pleasure Garden, from Vauxhall to Coney Island draws together the work of musicologists, art historians, and scholars of urban studies and landscape design to unfold a cultural history of pleasure gardens, from the entertainments they offered to the anxieties of social difference they provoked.

Before the Civil War, Coney Island boasted a beach, a dozen small hotels with ramshackle bathhouses, some chowder stands and a few saloons. After the war, it was taken over by powerful individuals who made its 0.7 square miles a domain of the wealthy. By 1905, with the population of New York City at four million, the city's amusement park builders designed an entertainment wonderland on the island that even the poor could enjoy, creating a "nickel empire," where visitors paid five cents for the subway, five cents for a Nathan's hot dog and five cents for a ride. In 1910, Coney Island saw 20 million visitors--more than Disneyland and Disney World combined could claim 70 years later, adjusted for population growth. Through the decades, the island has seen changes of fortune, floods and fires, cycles of decay and rehabilitation. Yet the ultimate power on the island was and is the government of the city of New York, which--for good or ill--has made Coney Island what it is today.

This literary anthology celebrates the history and romance of Coney Island with works by some of the 19th and 20th centuries’ greatest authors and poets. Featuring a stunning gallery of portraits by the world's finest poets, essayists, and fiction writers--including Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane, José Martí, Maxim Gorky, Federico García Lorca, Isaac Bashevis Singer, E. E. Cummings, Djuna Barnes, Colson Whitehead, Robert Olen Butler, and Katie Roiphe—this anthology illuminates the unique history and transporting experience of New York City’s quintessential beach destination. Moody, mystical, and enchanting, Coney Island has thrilled newcomers and soothed native New Yorkers for decades. Its fantasy entertainments, renowned beach foods, world-class boardwalk, and expansive beach offer a kaleidoscopic panorama of people, places, and events that have inspired writers of all types and nationalities. It becomes, as Lawrence Ferlinghetti once wrote, "a Coney Island of the mind."

The amusement parks which first appeared in England at the turn of the twentieth century represent a startlingly novel and complex phenomenon, combining fantasy architecture, new technology, ersatz danger, spectacle and consumption in a new mass experience. Though drawing on a diverse range of existing leisure practices, the particular entertainment formula they offered marked a radical departure in terms of visual, experiential and cultural meanings. The huge, socially mixed crowds that flocked to the new parks did so purely in the pursuit of pleasure, which the amusement parks commodified in exhilarating new guises. Between 1906 and 1939, nearly 40 major amusement parks operated across Britain. By the outbreak of the Second World War, millions of people visited these sites each year. The amusement park had become a defining element in the architectural psychological pleasurescape of Britain. This book considers the relationship between popular modernity, pleasure and the amusement park landscape in Britain from 1900-1939. It argues that the amusement parks were understood as a new and distinct expression of modern times which redefined the concept of public pleasure for mass audiences. Focusing on three sites - Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Dreamland in Margate and Southend's Kursaal - the book contextualises their development with references to the wider amusement park world. The meanings of these sites are explored through a detailed examination of the spatial and architectural form taken by rides and other buildings. The rollercoaster - a defining symbol of the amusement park - is given particular focus, as is the extent to which discourses of class, gender and national identity were expressed through the design of these parks.

Summers at the Vauxhall pleasure garden in London brought diverse entertainments to a diverse public. Picturesque walks and arbors offered a pastoral retreat from the city, while at the same time the garden's attractions indulged distinctly urban tastes for fashion, novelty, and sociability. High- and low-born alike were free to walk the paths; the proximity to strangers and the danger of dark walks were as thrilling to visitors as the fountains and fireworks. Vauxhall was the venue that made the careers of composers, inspired novelists, and showcased the work of artists. Scoundrels, sudden downpours, and extortionate ham prices notwithstanding, Vauxhall became a must-see destination for both Londoners and tourists. Before long, there were Vauxhalls across Britain and America, from York to New York, Norwich to New Orleans. This edited volume provides the first book-length study of the attractions and interactions of the pleasure garden, from the opening of Vauxhall in the seventeenth century to the amusement parks of the early twentieth. Nine essays explore the mutual influences of human behavior and design: landscape, painting, sculpture, and even transient elements such as lighting and music tacitly informed visitors how to move within the space, what to wear, how to behave, and where they might transgress. The Pleasure Garden, from Vauxhall to Coney Island draws together the work of musicologists, art historians, and scholars of urban studies and landscape design to unfold a cultural history of pleasure gardens, from the entertainments they offered to the anxieties of social difference they provoked.