Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University. He is the author of 'Patriots and Liberators', which won the Wolfson Prize for History, 'The Embarrassment of Riches', 'Citizens' which won the 1990 NCR book award for non-fiction, 'Dead Certainties', 'Landscape and Memory' which won the W H Smith Literary Award in 1995, and 'Rembrandt's Eyes' (1999). He is also the author of the monumental 'History of Britain' published in three volumes. He was art critic of the 'New Yorker' from 1995 to 1998 and was made CBE in the 2001 New Year's Honours list.
Citizens, patriots, liberators: Simon Schama has always had a good eye for a subject, but in Landscape and Memory we find him discussing wood, water and rock - what on earth is he getting at? In fact, he is undermining those who would like to compartmentalize and channel the study of history into a narrow and recognizable framework. This a different 'way of looking', not at people and events, but at the myths about landscape which form part of the common Western cultural tradition. In nearly 600 pages and with 300 illustrations, he travels from one side of the world to the other, surveying the ways in which landscape and the elemental forces of nature have served to influence the imaginations of peoples through the centuries. An interesting and worthwhile read because, as all good historians should, Schama forces you to think, and to reconsider the apparently familiar in a new, different, and sometimes startling light. (Kirkus UK)