Enchanted Aesthetic Spaces

The volume under review is a delightfully knowledgeable anthology of nine well researched articles, the fallout of a conference held at Hyderabad, marvellously printed with enchanting pictures. It takes us beyond essentialist notions of Islamic and Timurid gardens that have dominated the discussion of gardens in South Asia, and to overcome the seeming evidentiary impasse which has effectively muted discussion of South Asian gardens in non-Mughal contexts. To do this the authors have had recourse to the serious advances that have taken place in the scholarly field of garden and landscape studies over the past two decades.