Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition

Humans have long turned to gardens—both real and imaginary—for\nsanctuary from the frenzy and tumult that surrounds them. Those\ngardens may be as far away from everyday reality as Gilgamesh’s\ngarden of the gods or as near as our own backyard, but in their\nvery conception and the marks they bear of human care and\ncultivation, gardens stand as restorative, nourishing, necessary\nhavens.

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With Gardens, Robert Pogue Harrison graces readers with a\nthoughtful, wide-ranging examination of the many ways gardens evoke\nthe human condition. Moving from from the gardens of ancient\nphilosophers to the gardens of homeless people in contemporary New\nYork, he shows how, again and again, the garden has served as a\ncheck against the destruction and losses of history. The ancients,\nexplains Harrison, viewed gardens as both a model and a location\nfor the laborious self-cultivation and self-improvement that are\nessential to serenity and enlightenment, an association that has\ncontinued throughout the ages. The Bible and Qur’an; Plato’s\nAcademy and Epicurus’s Garden School; Zen rock and Islamic carpet\ngardens; Boccaccio, Rihaku, Capek, Cao Xueqin, Italo Calvino,\nAriosto, Michel Tournier, and Hannah Arendt—all come into play as\nthis work explores the ways in which the concept and reality of the\ngarden has informed human thinking about mortality, order, and\npower.

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Alive with the echoes and arguments of Western thought,\n_Gardens_ is a fitting continuation of the intellectual\njourneys of Harrison’s earlier classics, Forests and The\nDominion of the Dead. Voltaire famously urged us to cultivate\nour gardens; with this compelling volume, Robert Pogue Harrison\nreminds us of the nature of that responsibility—and its enduring\nimportance to humanity.

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