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Why do we react so strongly to certain places? Why do layers of mythology build up around particular features in the landscape? When Philip Marsden moved to a remote creekside farmhouse in Cornwall, the intensity of his response took him aback. It led him to begin exploring these questions, prompting a journey westwards to Land's End through one of the most fascinating regions of Europe.
From the Neolithic ritual landscape of Bodmin Moor to the Arthurian traditions of Tintagel, from the mysterious china-clay country to the granite tors and tombs of the far south-west, Marsden assembles a chronology of our shifting attitudes to place. In archives, he uncovers the life and work of other 'topophiles' before him - medieval chroniclers and Tudor topographers, eighteenth-century antiquarians, post-industrial poets and abstract painters. Drawing also on his own travels overseas, Marsden reveals that the shape of the land lies not just at the heart of our history but of man's perennial struggle to belong on this earth.
About the author
Philip Marsden, Autor von vier Reisebüchern, lebte 6 Monate in einem armenischen Kloster. 1991 war er im Kaukasus und wurde Zeuge jenes Chaos, das dem Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion folgte. In den 90er Jahren zog es ihn immer wieder in diese Landstriche des ehemaligen Sowjetreichs. Er lebt in einem Dorf in Cornwall.§
Summary
From an award-winning travel writer, this is an evocative journey around some of the country's most ancient sites and ritual places, and a profound exploration of the relationship between man and the landscape
