4 - Landscape geographies and histories

Summary

The landscape discourse in geography

‘Describing the Earth’ is the literal and the most basic definition of ‘Geography’ as an activity, but that apparently simple task has provoked many long-standing debates, not only about the art and science of geographical description but also about the nature of the object to be described. One such debate for more than a century has focused on the concept of ‘landscape’ and there persists to this day some ambiguity and confusion about it. I will, therefore, set out my own understanding and use of the term ‘landscape’, not least because I consider it to be significantly different from ‘environment’ and ‘region’ with which it has been – and still is – often confused. I will explore first the use of the concept of landscape in modern Western geography and then consider the idea of landscape more generally, both in earlier times and in other cultures. This will serve as a context for examining the connections of the landscape discourse in geography with the study of landscapes in history and other disciplines before considering in greater depth the specific concerns and contributions of historical geography to landscape studies.

The history of the word which gave rise to the concept of ‘landscape’ in different European languages has yet to be written (Besse 2000: 40), but it is clear that the term Landschaft became part of modern geographical currency in Germany towards the end of the nineteenth century.