ABSTRACT
“Brinck” Jackson—as he was known in the academic sector and to older friends—engaged the full range of American life. Jackson attended Deerfield Academy, Choate, the University of Wisconsin, and later Harvard, graduating there with a B.A. in history and literature in 1932. In “Landscape as Seen by the Military,” John Brinckerhoff Jackson tells of the urgent need to understand the battlefield terrain and the reasons for its significance. In “The Necessity for Ruins,” Jackson examined more closely the landscape as a repository of memory, and it remains one of his most prescient and enduring essays. Jackson, in contrast, was a softly spoken avuncular commentator, engaging his audience as if in a fireside chat. Jackson’s project remains a vital model for its very breadth, its regard for every life situation as a part of something greater, and for the courage to define the landscape in other than pictorial and formal terms.
