Hoskins, WG, The Making of the English Landscape.pdf

Scan of the classic text about The English Landscape. Very readable, and widely read even now, 60 years since its publication.
Francis Pryor, in his book, The Making of the British Landscape wrote of this book: "The academic study of landscape history is a relatively recent phenomenon, whose origins are often attributed to a single book: The Making of the English Landscape by Professor W. G. Hoskins, published in 1955. It has remained in print for more than half a century. As major academic milestones go, The Making was unusual. It was a slim volume, written in a relaxed conversational style and copiously illustrated with many fine photographs. It had an enormous effect.The story it told was that of England, as it was preserved in fields, farms, roads, buildings, towns and villages. Having read Hoskins several times, both as a student and after graduation, my life has been hugely enriched. After a session spent within the pages of The Making, I feel as if I have enjoyed a walk through a sublime landscape in the company of a great poet. In actual fact some of Hoskins’s views were reactionary in the extreme. He detested much of the modern world, for example, and his writing often seemed to hark back to a non-existent rural idyll. It is now clear that Hoskins’s work had its roots in the Romantic tradition of landscape appreciation, as exemplified by poets such as Wordsworth"

W.G. Hoskins was one of the most original and influential historians of the 20th century. He realized that landscapes are the richest record we have of the past, and with his masterpiece, The Making of the English Landscape, he changed forever how we experience the places we live and work.