From: George McKay <[log in to unmask]>
McKay, George, _Radical Gardening: Politics, Idealism and Rebellion in
the Garden_, London: Frances Lincoln, 2011.
Abstract:
In the common public perception, contemporary gardening is understood
as suburban, as leisure activity, as television makeover opportunity.
Its origins are seen as religious or spiritual (Garden of Eden),
military (the clipped lawn, the ha-ha and defensive ditches),
aristocratic or monarchical (the stately home, the Royal Horticultural
Society).
_Radical Gardening_ travels an alternative route, through history and
across landscape, linking propagation with propaganda. For everyday
garden life is not only patio, barbecue, white picket fence, topiary,
herbaceous border. This book uncovers moments, movements, gestures, of
a people's approach to gardens and gardening. It weaves together garden
history with the counterculture, stories of individual plants with
discussion of government policy, the social history of campaign groups
with the pleasure and dirt of hands in the earth.
Table of Contents:
==============
Introduction. The 'plots' of Radical Gardening
Chapter 1. The garden in the (city) machine
- Politics and protest in the public park
- Hyde Park as open green zone of political contestation
- Speaker's Corner
- Garden City movement
Chapter 2. Organics, left and right
- Organic gardening
- Fascists and their gardens: the horticultural politics of extreme
nationalism
Chapter 3. Peace in the garden
- The military garden
- Red poppy (Royal British Legion)/white poppy (Peace Pledge Union),
Peace rose
- The peace garden, CND, anti-war
Chapter 4. Flower power and the gardens of liberation
- Flower power and the 'horticounterculture' of the 1960s/70s
- Eco-utopianism
- 'Plant a flower child': psychedelic gardens (grow your own cannabis,
crop circles etc)
-Gardens of liberation: identity polittics and gardening (women's,
queer gardens, disability etc)
Chapter 5. Allotments, community gardens, and guerrilla gardening!
Bibliography
George McKay
Professor, Director, Communication Cultural & Media Studies (CCM)
Research Centre
University of Salford
http://georgemckay.org
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