A Cultural History of Gardens in the Modern Age

The definitive overview on gardens through history, A Cultural History of Gardens covers 2,500 years of gardens as physical, social and artistic spaces.

Landscape architecture and garden-making have witnessed huge changes during the twentieth-century, and the impact of these will continue to be discussed and interpreted in the twenty-first. New materials and responses to different social conditions, along with new attitudes to how gardens are perceived and interpreted and above all the relationship of built work to the larger landscape of territory and society - all have challenged long-held practices of garden-making, even while those same traditions continue to be at the centre of both designers and users. A Cultural History of Gardens in the Modern Age presents an overview of the period with essays on issues of design, types of gardens, planting, use and reception, issues of meaning, verbal and visual representation of gardens, and the relationship of gardens to the larger landscape.