Description

Take a field trip with American naturalist May Theilgaard Watts to see how nature, history, and culture have written their stories on the landscapes of Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Britain. In this sequel to her popular book Reading the Landscape of America, Watts explores the hills of Italy, the grouse heath of Yorkshire, the Black Forest of Germany, the limestone plateaus of France, and much more, explaining the forces that shaped these landscapes and continue to change them. She draws on botany, ecology, and geography, but also literature and folklore, to interpret the clues written on the land, as she considers the shapes of rooflines and coastlines, the ecology of forests and hedgerows, or the design of a vegetable plot. Illustrated with pen and ink drawings by the author. Includes a key to identifying the trees of Europe.