United Kingdom
£ GBP
Did you know that you can 'read' the landscapes of Scotland? It is easy to overlook how much of our history is preserved all around us – how the narrative of our changing nation has been inscribed in fields, forests, mountains, roads, buildings, villages, towns and cities. The footprints of the past can be found everywhere across our modern landscape. The very shapes of our fields tell us of the passing of the Romans and the labours of medieval peasants; while many hundreds of years later, great heaps of abandoned spoil mark the rapid decline of heavy industry in the latter half of the twentieth century. Our landscapes hold evidence of our past that cannot be explored any other way – offering valuable clues to aspects of life that have often been overlooked or ignored in written histories.
In this landmark new book you can learn how to read the landscapes around you, identify common and unusual features, and appreciate the incredible layers of the past to be found beneath your feet. A History of Scotland's Landscapes explores the many ways that we have used and changed our environment over thousands of years. Full of maps, photographs and drawings, it offers a remarkable new perspective on Scotland – a unique guide to tracing memories, events and meanings in the forms and patterns of our surroundings.
Fiona Watson is a mediaeval historian and writer, and the former Director for the Centre for Environmental History at the Universities of Stirling and St Andrews. She is the author of the history books Scotland from Prehistory to the Present, Macbeth: A True Story and Robert the Bruce, and was the presenter of In Search of Scotland, a BBC TV series on Scottish history. Piers Dixon and Lesley MacInnes are archaeologists each with over 30 years of experience researching, investigating, recording and writing about Scotland's landscapes.
