Lancelot “Capability” Brown was one of the most influential landscape designers of the
eighteenth-century at a time when Britain was changing radically from an agrarian to an
industrial and colonial nation, whilst Europe was periodically convulsed by war and
revolution. The extent and nature of his influence are, however, fiercely debated. Brown
worked at hundreds of important sites across England and his name became synonymous
with the “English Garden” style which was copied across Northern Europe and entranced …

Lavelle lays emphasis on the varied contexts and character of conflict and on the multiplicity
of groups and protagonists with axes to grind. Intra-group conflict features alongside that
between distinct ethnic groups and rebel-separatists battling centralised authority. Popular
uprisings in town and country are considered as well as the activities of disinherited or errant
royals, magnates and robber barons on the rampage. So to do we encounter many different
arenas for contestation: from the macro-scale geopolitics of kingdoms and polities through to …