Robert Riley has been a renowned figure in landscape studies for over fifty years; valued for his perceptive; learned; and highly entertaining articles; reviews; and essays. Much of Rileyrsquo;s work originally ran in Landscape; the pioneering magazine at which Riley succeeded the great geographer J. B. Jackson as editor. The Camaro in the Pasture is the first book to collect this compelling authorrsquo;s writing. With diverse topics ranging from science-fiction fantasies to problems of academic design research; the essays in this volume cover an entire half-century of Rileyrsquo;s observations on the American landscape. The essaysmdash;several of which are new or previously unpublishedmdash;interpret changing rationales for urban beautification; the evolution and transformation of the strip; the development of a global landscape of golf and resorts replacing an older search for exoticism; and the vernacular landscape as wallpaper rather than quilt. Ultimately; Riley envisions our future landscape as a rapidly fluctuating electronic net draped over the more slowly changing and familiar land- and building-based system. Throughout; Riley emphasizes the vernacular landscape of contemporary Americamdash;how we have shaped and use it; what it is becoming; and; above all; how we experience it.
#2238536 in eBooks 2013-08-20 2013-08-20File Name: B00P7SWCV0
Review
13 of 19 people found the following review helpful. Painfully tedious...By Redmond GeekProfessor Burrows book consists of chapters enumerating the events of Handels life during specific time periods; alternating with chapters analyzing the music he wrote in those periods.The biographical information is really more of a concordance of other Handel sources than a true biography. Much of the content is commentary on the origins of some particular (tiny) fact; and endless discussions of inconsistencies between one source and another.Whats missing is any sense of the historical context in which the events of Handels life took place. Or conjectures/inferences about why he might have made the choices he made. Whats missing is any kind of narrative flow.I get the sense that Burrows is writing for other Handel scholars rather than for a general audience. The result is that his book reads more like a train schedule than a biography.So; if youre looking for an exhaustive (and exhausting) academic reference work; this is the book for you. If you want something of a more general nature; youd be advised to look elsewhere...
