Enfilade

Peter Borsay died in 2020 at the age of 70; his last book, prepared for publication by Rosemary Sweet, has just been published by Bloomsbury:

Peter Borsay, with Rosemary Sweet, The Invention of the English Landscape, c. 1700–1939 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-1350031678, $115.

Since at least the Reformation, English men and women have been engaged in visiting, exploring and portraying, in words and images, the landscape of their nation. The Invention of the English Landscape examines these journeys and investigations to explore how the natural and historic English landscape was reconfigured to become a widely enjoyed cultural and leisure resource.

Peter Borsay considers the manifold forces behind this transformation, such as the rise of consumer culture, the media, industrial and transport revolutions, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the Gothic revival. In doing so, he reveals the development of a powerful bond between landscape and natural identity, against the backdrop of social and political change from the early modern period to the start of the Second World War. Borsay’s interdisciplinary approach demonstrates how human understandings of the natural world shaped the geography of England, and uncovers a wealth of valuable material, from novels and poems to paintings, that expose historical understandings of the landscape. This innovative approach illuminates how the English countryside and historic buildings became cultural icons behind which the nation was rallied during war-time, and explores the emergence of a post-war heritage industry that is now a definitive part of British cultural life.

Peter Borsay was Professor of History at Aberystwyth University, a member of the advisory boards of Urban History and the Journal of Tourism History, and a committee member of the British Pre-Modern Towns Group. His books include The English Urban Renaissance (1989); The Image of Georgian Bath, 1700–2000: Towns, Heritage, and History (2000); and A History of Leisure: the British Experience since 1500 (2006). He co-edited Resorts and Ports: European Seaside Towns since 1700 (2011) and Leisure Cultures in Urban Europe, c. 1700–1870: A Transnational Perspective (2016).

Rosemary Sweet is Professor of Urban History and Director of the Centre of Urban History at the University of Leicester. She is the author of The English Town, 1680–1840 and The Writing of Urban Histories in Eighteenth-Century England.

c o n t e n t s

List of Illustrations
Foreword
Acknowledgments

1  Introduction
2  Revealing the Early Modern Landscape
3  Ideas and Representations
4  Reconfiguring the Landscape
5  New Geographies and Topographies
6  Timescapes
7  Economic and Social Change
8  The Transport Revolution and the Journey
9  Identities
10  Conclusion: The Second World War and Beyond

Select Bibliography
Index