‘Disciples of Flora’: Gardens in History and Culture

"A truly outstanding collection of essays, each one a gem in its own right. This book opens magnificent and enlightening vistas on the cultural, social, and intellectual history of gardens, showing us the extent to which their cultivation defines human culture in its immense variety of manifestations."Robert Pogue HarrisonProfessor of Italian, Stanford University; author of Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition"Although an apparently eclectic collection of conference papers, these proceedings certainly do emphasize the vitality of the garden as a cultural site in which ideas are articulated. The editors’ introduction outlines their gendered and conceptual intentions, and establishes a contextual framework for the papers. The variety of subjects addressed and the authors’ analyses of them are both insightful and stimulating, so that this book is a welcome addition to garden history."Patrick EyresGarden History, 45:2 (2017)"The editors of this book teach, respectively, Classics, English and French in the United States - and a big hurrah for their interdisciplinary approach. [...] [T]he content is accessible and well worth reading. Subjects include how women became accepted as professional gardeners, the MuseoParc on the site of the battle of Alesia, the portrayal of Marie-Antoinette in the garden of the Petit Trianon, and the afterlife of Little Sparta."Gillian MawreyHistoric Gardens Review, 35 (2017)"From a philosophical and critical point of view, this collection of essays under review is a series of case studies that, despite the different approaches that each one adopts, successfully converge on the perception and theorisation of the space of the garden as a real and textual/visual place that must be read and interpreted as part of the natural world, even if it is inseparably linked to varying social trends, aesthetic appearances and ideological practices - cultural trends, in short - which have changed over time and geographic space, but which remain constant as an expression and aspiration of our world."Lidia Raquel MirandaAutoridades del Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) and Universidad Nacional de La PampaCirce de clásicos y modernos, 20:2 (2016)"Disciples of Flora comprises a series of meditations on what is arguably the most resonant of cultural spaces, the garden. The work relies on deftly grouped, engaging case studies to explore the wide spectrum of meanings that individual gardens can possess and to examine the intentions of their creators. One dominant organizational theme is ‘gender’ and the elastic paradox of an historically feminized, fertile earth that was traditionally shaped and tended by a male gardener. A second area of emphasis is the conceptual framework of diverse garden enterprises ranging from the little-known garden of Louise du Pont Crowninshield at what is now the Hagley Estate in Delaware to Ian Hamilton Finlay's renowned Little Sparta in Scotland. In sum, this work constitutes a unique and valuable contribution to the growing literature on the inextricable bond between humanity and nature."Annette GieseckeElias Ahuja Professor of Classics, University of Delaware