Late Night Live 27:07:23 An early book written while teaching Environment History Now Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University.

Loved this book!

Got it. Finally. Took me one and a half years to read that fucker! Actually, I stopped after the most - and only - relevant part, the one about ROCK, leaving the summary part out.
Doesn't make for smooth bedside reading... My eyes would capitulate after a couple of pages.
It is highly interesting and Schama tries hard to make the reading entertaining, but it remains scientific and in parts highly speculative. His line of reasoning is not always easy to follow and I couldn't always detect a red line between the places that he presents and how they are perceived and how they mirror the society of a certain time.
Lastly, some contents have been put in quite arbitrarily - at least that's what it seems to me.

I find this a hard book to finish. It is one of those books it seems difficult to get into although the material is interesting and the thought good. ( )

This book is a fascinating treatise on the role nature (specifically wood, water, and rock) has played in Western culture. Art and history professor at Columbia University, Schama considered this the one book he needed to write. He expertly touches on so many examples of our environment's influence on our collective memory that the book is difficult to describe- everything from Hitler's obsession with the forests of Europe and the battles fought to get Susan B. Anthony on Mount Rushmore, to Western lust for Egyptian obelisks and dance parties held on the massive stumps of California Sequoias in the mid-nineteenth century. This work is also, with its classical layout and type font and its many excellent illustrations, one of the most beautifully designed books I've ever seen. Highly recommended. ( )