Patterned Ground

Book excerpt: "Patterned Ground unravels the entangled relationships between nature and culture. Around 100 entries by leading names in new geography and related disciplines focus on various 'objects' in the landscape - from beaches to battlefields, bees to horses, police stations to post offices, trees to tractors. Each entry, written by an expert in the field, explores the way in which we understand that object and its relationship to the world around it." "This book is neither encyclopaedia nor dictionary, but a knowledgeable and impassioned engagement with the world. In this sense, it chimes with earlier experiments in understanding the earth and its landscapes, whether these endeavours have been conducted within the sciences, the social sciences or the arts." "Patterned Ground backtracks from familiar and obvious ways of seeing patterns in the world in order to discover the world anew. It opens up new possibilities for thinking about the relationships between ourselves, objects and the ground on which we walk."--BOOK JACKET.