SOURCE: “Looking under the Landscape,” in Kenyon Review, Vol. XIX, No. 1, Winter, 1997, pp. 153–57.

In the following review of Landscape and Memory, Ryan finds shortcomings in Schama's wide-reaching thesis and apparent affinity for “boldness” and human domination over nature.

It is Simon Schama's thesis in Landscape and Memory that it's no good trying to sweep the primitive workings of myth under the rug of culture because the rug of culture is woven of myth as well. The simplicity of Schama's idea—that we must always and forever take myth with us and have never been able to plant a tree, set a stone, or divert water into fountains without invoking ancient forces—proves endlessly provable.

Schama strings a thousand delights on the needle of his thesis. The thread is nearly endless, loops about, and lacks a knot at the end, but these seem ill-natured observations when the reader's appetite...