The American Landscape
Full Reading List
Cultural Theory
Rapport, N. And Overing, J. (eds) 2000. Social and Cultural Anthropology: The Key Concepts Routledge.
See ‘Agent and Agency’, ‘Culture’ and ‘Thick Description’
Hann, S (2000) Social Anthropology. Hodder and Stoughton. See Chapter 14 Symbols and ideologies
Silverman, E.K. (1990) Clifford Geertz: towards a more ‘thick’ understanding? In C. Tilley Reading
Material Culture. London: Blackwell.
Cultural Geography and Landscape
Cosgrove, D. (1984) Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape. London: Croom Helm. Introduction and
Chapter 1 the Idea of Landscape
Cosgrove, D. and Daniels, S. (eds) (1988) The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic
Representation, Design, and Use of Past Landscapes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Introduction
Iconography and landscape
Cresswell, T. (1996) In Place/Out of Place, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Part 1 pages 1-28
Daniels, S (1993) Humphrey Repton and the Improvement of the Estate, in S. Daniels, Fields of Vision, Polity Press,
Cambridge, pp. 80-111.
Duncan, J. and Duncan, N. (1988) ‘(Re)Reading the Landscape’. Environment and Planning D: Society and
Space 6, 117-126.
Hayden D (1995) The power of place: urban landscapes as public history MIT Press Cambridge, Mass.
Section 1 (chapters 1-3)
Harvey, D. (1979) ‘Monument and Myth’. Annals of the Association of American geographers. 69, 362-81.
Jackson, P. (1989) Maps of Meaning: An Introduction to Cultural Geography. London: Routledge.
Introduction and Chapter 1 pp. 1-25
Johnson, N. (1995) ‘Cast in Stone: Monuments, Geography and Nationalism’. Environment and Planning D:
Society and Space, 13, 51-65.
Luke TW (2002) Museum politics: power plays at the exhibition Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press. Introduction (xiii-xxvi), Chapter 1 (1-18) and any other chapter (these are excellent case studies on the
politics of representation)
Meinig, D. (1979) Symbolic landscapes: models of American community in The Interpretation of Ordinary
Landscapes: Geographical Essays Meinig, D. (ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press pp. 164-195
Mitchell D (1995) ‘The end of public space? People's Park, definitions of the public and democracy’ Annals
of the Association of American Geographers 35 108-133
Osborne B (1998) 'Constructing landscapes of power: the George Etienne Cartier Monument, Montreal'
Journal of Historical Geography 24 431-458
Schein, R. (1997) ‘The place of landscape: a conceptual framework for the American scene. Annals of the
Association of American Geographers. 86, 630-653.
Till K (2001) ‘Reimagining national identity: "chapters of life" at the German Historical Museum in Berlin’
in Adams P, Hoelscher S and Till K eds Textures of place, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis pp.
273-299
Till K (2003) ‘Places of memory’ in Agnew JA, Mitchell K and Toal G eds A companion to political
geography, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford pp. 289-301
American History (general introduction)
Brogan, H. (2001) The Penguin History of the United States of America. Penguin Books. Second Edition.
Conzen, M.P. (ed) (1990) The Making of the American Landscape. London: Harper Collins.
Washington DC History and Planning
Abbott, C. (1999) Political Terrain: Washington DC, from Tidewater Town to Global Metropolis. University
of North Carolina Press. Chapter 2 26-53
Luria S (2005) Capital speculations : writing and building Washington, D.C University of New Hampshire
Press Durham, N.H. Introduction (xxi-xxxi) and chapters 1-3.
Reps, J. (1967) Monumental Washington. Princeton University Press.
Schuyler, D. (1986) The New Urban Landscape: The Redefinition of City Form in Nineteenth-Century
America. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Press. Chapters 1 (pp. 11-24) and 10 (pp.180-197)
Young, J.S. (1966) The Washington Community, 1800-1828. Columbia University Press.
Washington DC Monuments and Memorials
Benton-Short, L (2006) ‘Politics, public space and memorials: the brawl on the mall’ Urban Geography 27
(4) 297-329
Griswold, C.L. (1986) ‘The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Washington Mall: Philosophical Thoughts
on Political Iconography’. Critical Inquiry, 12, summer issue. 688-711.
Scott P (2002) ‘This vast empire: the iconography of the Mall 1791-1848’ in Longstreth R ed The Mall in
Washington, 1791-1991, Yale University Press, New Haven pp. 37-60
Sturken, M. (1991) ‘The Wall, the Screen, and the Image: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial’
Representations, summer issue 35, 118-142.
Wilson RG (2002) ‘High noon on the mall: modernism versus traditionalism 1910-1970’ in Longstreth R ed
The Mall in Washington, 1791-1991, Yale University Press, New Haven pp. 143-168
Wilderness and the Frontier
Bunce, M. (1994) The Countryside Ideal: Anglo-American Images of Landscape. London: Routledge.
Introduction (1-3) and Chapter 1 (4-29)
Butzer, K.W. (1990) ‘The Indian legacy in the American landscape’ in M.P. Conzen (ed) The Making of the
American Landscape. London: Harper Colins, 27-50.
Cosgrove, D. (1984) Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape. London: Croom Helm. Chapters 5 and 6.
Cronon, W. (1992) ‘Telling tales on canvas: landscapes of frontier change’ in J.D. Prown et al, Discovered
Lands, Invented Pasts: Transforming Visions of the American West. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp.
37-88.
Cronon, W. (1995) ‘The trouble with wilderness; or getting back to the wrong nature’ in Uncommon
Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, pp. 69-90.
Daniels, S. (1993) Fields of Vision: Landscape Imagery and National Identity in England and the United
States. Oxford: Polity Press.
Denevan, W.M. (1992) ‘The pristine myth: the landscape of the Americas in 1492’ Annals of the Association
of American Geographers 82 (3), 369-385.
Lowenthal, D. (1976) ‘The place of the past in the American landscape’ in D. Lowenthal and M. Bowden
(eds) Geographies of the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 89-110.
Nash, R. (1973) Wilderness and the American Mind. London: Yale University Press.
Runte, A. (1976) ‘The west: wealth, wonderland and wilderness’ in J.W. Watson and T.O’Riordan (eds) The
American Environment: Perceptions and Policies, London: Wiley, pp. 63-75.
Runte, A. (1979) National Parks: The American Experience. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Chapter
1 (pp 11-32) and other chapters.
Truettner, W.H. and Wallach, A. (1994) Thomas Cole: Landscape into History. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Truettner, W.H. (ed) (1991) The West as America: reinterpreting images of the frontier, 1820-1920.
Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Williams, M. (1990) ‘The clearing of the forests’ in M.P. Conzen (ed) The Making of the American
Landscape. London: Harper Collins, 146-168.
Wolf, B (1996) ‘Thomas Cole: Landscape into History; Understanding Thomas Cole Today; Thomas Cole
and the Rise of American Landscape Painting’ (review essay) The Journal of American History 83 (3) pp.
958-962
Race and Racialised landscape
Alderman DH (2000) ‘A street fit for a King: naming places and commemoration in the American South’
Professional Geographer 52 pp. 672-684
Alderman DH (2006) ‘Street names as memorial arenas: the reputational politics of commemorating Martin
Luthar King Jr. in Georgia County’ in Romano RC and Raiford L eds The Civil Rights movement in
American memory, University of Georgia Press, Athens pp. 67-95
Anderson KJ (1987) ‘The idea of Chinatown: the power of institutional practice in the making of a racial
category’ Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77 pp. 580-598
Delany, D (1998) Race, Place and the Law 1936-1948. Austin: Texas University Press. Chapters 3 and 4
Dwyer OJ (2006) ‘Interpreting the Civil Rights Movement: contradition, confirmation and the cultural
landscape’ in Romano RC and Raiford L eds The Civil Rights movement in American memory, University of
Georgia Press, Athens pp. 5-27
Dwyer O (2000) ‘Interpreting the civil rights movement: place, memory and conflict’ The Professional
Geographer 52 pp. 660-671
Dwyer OJ and Alderman DH (2008) Civil rights memorials and the geography of memory Center for
American Places at Columbia College Chicago : Distributed by the University of Georgia Press Chicago
Jackson, P. (1989) Maps of Meaning: An Introduction to Cultural Geography. London: Routledge. Chapter 6
pp. 132-153
Leib J (2002) ‘Separate times, shared spaces: Arthur Ashe, Monument Avenue and the politics of Richmond,
Virginia's symbolic landscape’ Cultural Geographies 9 pp. 286-312
Schein RH (2009) ‘A methodological framework for interpreting ordinary landscapes: Lexington Kentucky’s
Courthouse Square’ Geographical Review 99 (3) 377-402
Schein RH (2006) Landscape and race in the United States. Routledge New York. Chapters 1 (Schein) and 3
(Hoelscher).
Shackel PA (2003) Memory in black and white : race, commemoration, and the post-bellum landscape
Altamira Press: Walnut Creek.
Gender and landscape temporality
Bondi, L. and Domosh, M. (1998) ‘On the contours of public space: a tale of three women’ Antipode 30 (3),
270-289.
Davidoff, L. and Hall, C. (1983) ‘The architecture of public and private life: English middle-class society in
a provincial town 1780-1850’ in D. Fraser and A. Sutcliffe (eds) The Pursuit of Urban History, 327-345.
Deutsch, S. (1994) ‘Reconceiving the city: women, space and power in Boston, 1870-1910’ Gender and
History, 6 (2), 202-223.
Domosh, M. (1996) Invented Cities: The Creation of Landscape in Nineteenth-century New York and
Boston. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Domosh, M. (1998) ‘Those “gorgeous incongruities”: polite politics and public space on the streets of
nineteenth-century New York City’ Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88, 209-226.
Leach, W (1984) ‘ Transformations in the culture of consumption: women and department stores, 18901925’, Journal of American History, 71, pp. 319-342.
McDowell, L. (1993) ‘Space, place and gender relations: Part I. Feminist empiricism and the geography of
social relations’ Progress in Human Geography, 17 (2), 157-179.
McDowell, L. (1993) ‘Space, place and gender relations: Part II. Identity, difference, feminist geometries
and geographies’ Progress in Human Geography. 17 (3), 305-318.
Monk, J. and Hanson, S. (1982) ‘On not excluding half of the human in human geography’ The Professional
Geographer 32, 11-23.
Spain, D. (1992) Gendered Spaces. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Stansell, C. (1986) City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (See
Introduction, and Chapters 9 and 10, and the Conclusion).
Modernity, Postmodernity and Postmodern Geography
Boyer, C. (1992) ‘Cities for sale: Merchandising history at South Street Seaport’ in Sorkin, M ed. Variations
On a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space, Hill and Wang, New York. (see
introduction and other chapters in volume)
Eco, U (1986) Travels in Hyperreality. Harcourt, San Diego.
Harvey, D. (1990) The Condition of Postmodernity. Blackwell, Oxford. Chapters 2 and 4.
Minca, C. (2001) Postmodern Geography: Theory and Practice. Blackwell, Oxford. Chapters 1-3
The Las Vegas Landscape
Abbott, C (1981) The New Urban America: Growth and Politics In Sunbelt Cities, Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press.
Fox, W (2005). In the Desert of Desire: Las Vegas and the Culture of Spectacle. University of Nevada Press,
Reno.
Franci G. (2005) Dreaming of Italy: Las Vegas and the Virtual Grand Tour. University of Nevada Press,
Reno
Gottdiener, M (1999) Las Vegas: The Social Production of an All-American City, Blackwell, Malden.
Izenour, S and Dashiell DAIII (1991) ‘Relearning from Las Vegas’ Architecture, October
Newman, M (1995) ‘The Strip Meets the Flaming Volcano’ Progressive Architecture, February
O’Doherty, B. (1972) ‘Highway to Las Vegas’ Art in America, January/February
Pastier, J (1978) ‘The Architecture of Escapism: Disney World and Las Vegas’ American
Institute of Architects Journal, December
Rothman, H and Davis, M (2002). The Grit Beneath The Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas. University
of California Press, Berkeley.
Rothman, H (2002) Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-First Century, Routledge, New
York.
Schwartz, D (1973) The Casino Resort on the Las Vegas Strip and Beyond, Routledge, New York.