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Informationen zum Autor Jeremy Burchardt is Associate Professor in Rural History at the University of Reading. He is Principal Investigator of the Arts & Humanities Research Council research network 'Changing Landscapes, Changing Lives' and was P. H. Ditchfield Fellow at the Museum of English Rural Life, 2019-20. His previous publications include The Allotment Movement in England, 1793-1873 (2002) and Paradise Lost: Rural Idyll and Social Change Since 1800 (2002). Klappentext Why does landscape matter to us? We rarely articulate the often highly individual ways it can do so. Drawing on eight remarkable unpublished diaries, Jeremy Burchardt demonstrates that responses to landscape in modern Britain were powerfully affected by personal circumstances, especially those experienced in childhood and youth. Four major patterns are identified: 'Adherers' valued landscape for its continuity, 'Withdrawers' for the refuge it provides from perceived threats, 'Restorers' for its sustaining of core value systems, and 'Explorers' for its opportunities for self-discovery and development. Lifescapes sets out a new approach to landscape history based on comparative biography and deep contextualization, which has far-reaching implications. It foregrounds family structures and relationships and the psychological dynamics they generate. These, it is argued, were usually a more decisive presence in landscape encounters than wider cultural patterns and forces. Seen in this way, landscape can be understood as a mirror reflecting our innermost selves and the psychosocial influences shaping our development. This is a compelling and original study of the relationship between individual lives and landscapes. Zusammenfassung Why does landscape matter to us? Lifescapes develops a new approach to landscape history based on comparative biography, offering a penetrating and richly empathetic study of the relationship between individual lives and landscapes, through eight compellingly varied modern British examples. Inhaltsverzeichnis Preface; Introduction; 1. Diaries, life writing and popular ruralism; Adherers; 2. Beatrix Cresswell: Exeter antiquarian; 3. William Henry Hallam: Swindon turner; Withdrawers; 4. Katherine Spear Smith: Hampshire artist; 5. Violet Dickinson: itinerant craftswoman; Restorers; 6. Dr John Johnston: Bolton doctor; 7. Bert Bissell: Dudley probation officer; Explorers; 8. Sadie Barmes: London clerk; 9. Fred Catley: Bristol bookseller; Conclusion: towards a deep history of landscape; Bibliography....
