ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book seeks to trace human, food, and landscape trajectories from prehistory to the present, showing that these traces have relevance to today's lived landscape. It demonstrates how landscapes may be understood from the standpoint of cultural revolution, and that the food relationships which are constitutive of landscapes may be read in very deep time. The book then examines scales and modes of agriculture situated in the dominant drivers and practices of particular times. It also outlines solutions and paths forward to shift the planet towards a state of ecological equilibrium. The book discusses enduring milieus of sacrifice and the commons, food markets, and allotments and community gardens. At the turn of the millennium, both landscape studies and particularly food studies were relatively unappreciated, with many of the best presentations in various media coming not from academia, but from popular commentators.
