Maps on lining papers

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Wood: Prologue : The detour ; In the realm of the Lithuanian bison: The royal beasts of Baiłowieża ; The last foray ; Mortality, immortality -- Der Holzweg : the track through the woods: The hunt for Germania ; Blood in the forest ; Arminius Redivivus ; Waldsterben -- The liberties of the greenwood: Green men ; Living in the woods : laws and outlaws ; Hearts of oak and bulwarks of liberty? ; The pillars of Gaul ; In extremis -- The verdant cross: Grizzlies ; Vegetable resurrection ; Pathfinders ; The verdant cross ; Tabernacles ; Volvos at the sepulchre -- Water: Streams of consciousness: The flow of myth ; Circulation : arteries and mysteries ; Holy confluences ; Fons sapientiae ; Nile brought to Tiber ; Bernini and the four rivers -- Bloodstreams: Sir Walter Ralegh loses his drift ; The man in the brown paper boat ; Power lines ; The political theory of whitebait ; Bodies of water ; The waters of Isis : the Thames and the Nile -- Rock: Dinocrates and the shaman : altitude, beatitude, magnitude: The woman on Mount Rushmore ; Donocrates and the shaman ; Elevations ; Exorcising Pilate ; Calvaries of convenience ; The last Sacro Monte? -- Vertical empires, cerebral chasms: Delightful horror ; Vertical empires, cerebral chasms ; The seat of virtue ; Conquests ; Albert the Great ; Prospects of salvation -- Wood, water, rock: Arcadia redesigned: Et in Arcadia ego ; Primitives and pastorals ; Rudeness and confusion ; An Arcadia for the people : the Forest of Fontainebleau ; Arcadia under glass ; The wild, hairy huckleberry.

This book examines our relationship with the landscape around us - rivers, mountains, forests - the impact that each of them has had on our culture and imaginations, and the way in which we, in turn, have shaped them to suit our needs.