This collection of essays by landscape historian Alessandra Ponte begins with an investigation of the American obsession with lawns, then continues to collectively map the aesthetic, scientific and technological production of past and present North American landscapes. These include the American desert as a privileged site of scientific and artistic testing; the faraway projects of the electrification of the Canadian North; the transformation of the notion and perception of waste and wasteland during the 20th century; the photographic medium and its encounters with Native Americans; as well as an introductory essay, ‘The Map and the Territory’, written specifically for this volume.

9781907896170, 2014
18 × 11cm, illustrated, 228pp, paperback