Tanks, bombs and soldiers may be the immediate occupants of the vast swathes of militarized territories across the world, but do they have other functions and meanings? A new book, based on research funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), takes an unprecedented look at these places and holds some unexpected answers.

‘Militarized Landscapes: From Gettysburg to Salisbury Plain’, is one of the major outputs of a three-year project, funded by the AHRC as part of the ‘Landscape and Environment’ strategic research programme, that explores these often hidden, dangerous and controversial sites. Moving beyond the narrow definition of militarized landscapes as theatres of war, it focuses on the rural environments that have been reshaped by preparation for warfare.

Edited by a team from the University of Bristol’s Department of History, the book includes contributions from historians, geographers, a landscape architect and a clinical psychologist. Chapters range from contemporary flashpoints such as the Korean De-militarized Zone (DMZ) to former nuclear testing sites in the deserts of the American West, and from the memorial landscape of the celebrated US Civil War battlefield site of Gettysburg to the UK Ministry of Defence’s training grounds on Salisbury Plain, the Dorset coast and the Welsh mountains. Other places covered include Norway and the occupied Palestinian territories.

One of the book’s most surprising findings is that certain militarized sites and training grounds have become unexpected and unintentional wildlife refuges, and are now managed for environmental as well as military objectives.

As lead editor Dr Chris Pearson explains: “Army training leads to pollution, bomb craters, and other forms of environmental damage. But military ownership of certain sites, such as Salisbury Plain, has kept intensive agriculture as well as tourism and urbanization at bay and encouraged the preservation of ecologically outstanding habitats.

“This is a controversial topic because critics claim, with some justification, that military activity is incompatible with good stewardship of the land. In actual fact, militarized landscapes are paradoxical, multi-layered places and military environmentalism is a complex and ambiguous topic, which deserves far greater and more dispassionate attention that it currently receives.”

“Military establishments have added defence of nature to defence of nation,” adds Professor Peter Coates, one of the co-editors.

The book also examines how political activists, displaced civilians, and environmentalists have challenged the military mobilization of landscapes, villages, and other sites rich in local history, cultural meaning, and natural biodiversity.

It was originally inspired by an international conference held at the University of Bristol in September 2008, as part of the three-year project ‘Militarized Landscapes in Twentieth Century Britain, France and the United States,’ funded by the Landscape and Environment programme of the AHRC.

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AHRC Media contact: Jake Gilmore, Communications Manager, 01793 416021; j.gilmore@ahrc.ac.uk  

Notes to Editor:

Militarized Landscapes - From Gettysburg to Salisbury Plain
Description: The black smoke billowing from burning oil wells during the Gulf War of 1990-91 directed media and public attention towards war’s devastating environmental impact. Yet even before the first bomb is dropped, preparation for warfare materially and imaginatively reshapes rural landscapes and environments.

This volume is the first to explore the comparative histories and geographies of militarized landscapes. Moving beyond the narrow definition of militarized landscapes as theatres of war, it treats them as simultaneously material and cultural sites that have been partially or fully mobilized to achieve military aims. Ranging from the Korean DMZ to nuclear testing sites in the American West, and from Gettysburg to Salisbury Plain, Militarized Landscapes focuses on these often secretive, hidden, dangerous and invariably controversial sites that occupy huge swathes of national territories.

The book has been edited by:
Dr Chris Pearson, Research Associate at the University of Bristol, specializing in the environmental history of war.
Professor Peter Coates, Professor of American and Environmental History at the University of Bristol. and Dr Tim Cole, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary European Social History at the University of Bristol, specializing in Holocaust studies

Arts & Humanities Research Council: Each year the AHRC provides approximately £112 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from languages and law, archaeology and English literature to design and creative and performing arts. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,300 postgraduate awards. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.

The AHRC Landscape and Environment Research Programme aims to establish distinctive, innovative and engaging arts and humanities research perspective on landscape and environment through projects of the highest quality and international significance. Across the range of its activity, the Programme will draw on a range of disciplinary expertise and resources to produce work which is critical and creative, collaborative and communicative, and seeking to change the ways landscape and environment are understood. The Programme has a budget of £5.5 million and is running from 2005 to 2010.