Landscapes and Cityscapes

"Reconceptualizing Urbanism: Insights From Maya Cosmology"

Sustainable practices in the present are typically designed to mitigate immediate concerns over decadal timespans. In the face of exponential population growth, overuse of resources, and global climate change, this time span is inadequate; longer,…

Islamic Gardens and Landscapes

Awarded the 2009 J. B. Jackson Book Prize from the Foundation for Landscape Studies "In the course of my research," writes D. Fairchild Ruggles, "I devoured Arabic agricultural manuals from the tenth through the fourteenth centuries. I love…

A Common Stage: Theater and Public Life in Medieval Arras

Medieval Arras was a thriving town on the frontier between the kingdom of France and the county of Flanders, and home to Europe's earliest surviving vernacular plays: The Play of St. Nicholas, The Courtly Lad of Arras, The Boy and the Blind Man, The…

"Sustaining Freshwater Security and Community Wealth: Diversity and Change in the Pre-Columbian Maya Lowlands"

As water availability, management and conservation become global challenges, there is now wide consensus that historical knowledge can provide crucial information to address present crises, offering unique opportunities to appreciate the solutions…

"Climate Change, Mesoamerica, and the Classic Maya Collapse"

Mesoamerica covers a vast geographic area with its deserts, semi-arid upland, and tropical highlands and lowlands, and includes Mexico, Central America, and parts of the Southwest United States. This chapter discusses the impact of climate change in…

"Leeks for Livery: Consuming Welsh Difference in the Chester Shepherds’ Play"

This fascinating volume brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including literary studies, history, geography, and archaeology, to investigate questions of space, place, and identity in the medieval city. Using medieval Chester as…

New Materialisms Ancient Urbanisms

The future of humanity is urban, and knowledge of urbanism’s deep past is critical for us all to navigate that future. The time has come for archaeologists to rethink this global phenomenon by asking what urbanism is and, more to the point, was. Can…

"The Legendary Topography of the Viking Settlement of Iceland"

From the time of their earliest texts in the vernacular, Icelanders were interested in the semioticization of their landscape, the mapping of nature into culture by inscribing it with memories from the settlement of the island during the Viking Age.…

"Landscape and Seascape: The British Isles and the Orlando Furioso"

Since the earliest reception of the Orlando Furioso, the episodes Ariosto set in and around the British Isles have fascinated readers and inspired iconic artistic depictions. This chapter explores these episodes, focusing on Ariosto’s manipulation of…