Anglo-American (especially British) cultural geography, although there are some references to North

American writers such as Jackson, Sorkin and Zukin (even Sauer). Nevertheless, each case study

implicitly articulates the interaction of the complex and contradictory authorial intentions, differential

readings and inherent instability of meaning of these dynamic landscapes. There is a subtle balance of

approach between textual analyses of landscape and performative analyses, which address how multiple

agents have actively scripted these spaces. Of particular interest in this regard are the chapters on

American Agricultural Fairs and Theme Park amusement rides. Both focus on the anthropology of

visitor perception. The former outlines the significance of received representations of landscape, whilst

the latter develops an intriguing plurisensorial approach to the consumption of landscapes whose explicit

choreography and regulation imply the tight constraint of individual agency.

It is also exciting to see the cultural analysis of theme park landscapes move beyond an Anglo-

American focus to include Chinese and Japanese examples of the genre. The role of the theme park

landscape as performative space is elucidated by a study of Huis Ten Bosch, Nagasaki, a simulacrum of

medieval Dutch townscapes intended as a viable alternative future urbanism for Japan. Comparative

analyses of folk heritage parks in China and Taiwan question the appropriateness of Western models of

theming for interpreting how Chinese identities are constructed, displayed and consumed at these

fairgrounds. Instead, a distinctive Chinese modernity is emergent at such sites, characterised by self-

conscious nationalism and didacticism intended for indigenous tourist consumption. Shenzen’s

‘Window of the World’ reproduces global diversity as a ‘perplexing kaleidoscope’ (p. 287) whose

cultural pastiche reinforces the perceived stability of China.

This book, then, offers a multifaceted analysis of the production and social consumption of a diversity

of themed landscapes. Handsomely produced and liberally illustrated, it is a very welcome and

stimulating addition to the literature.

Anthony Gristwood

Department of Geography

Queen’s University

Canada

doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2004.03.001

Yvonne Whelan, Reinventing Modern Dublin: Streetscape, Iconography and the Politics of Identity,

University College Dublin Press, Dublin, 2003, xvii þ 318 pages, £18.99 paperback.

On 3 May 1938 an editorial in the Irish Times returned to a topic which featured as, and continues to be

to this day, a perennial favourite: building Dublin. It began by asking whether there should be ‘Economy

or extravagance? Beauty or squalor? Orderly development or uncouth straggling? Healthy spaciousness

or unwholesome straggling?’ The spirit of these questions, which are as much a part of contemporary

debates as they are historical, form the basis for Yvonne Whelan’s excellent survey of Dublin’s

architectural past, from the 18th century to the construction of the O’Connell Street spire at the start

of the 21st.

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The book is introduced by a lengthy discussion of its various themes, all of which is underpinned by

an exhaustive exercise in locating Whelan’s methodology in the key literature. This section stands as an

essay in its own right, and would be invaluable to anyone considering a similar national survey or

comparative text. Sadly, despite its adept style and useful underpinning of the main concepts that can be

used to understand the symbolic use of public space in a capital city, the introduction is somewhat

forgotten during the rest of the text. It would have been useful if Whelan had explicitly applied this

literature to Dublin rather than allowing theories and ideas to be an implied aside during the main body

of the book. This, however, is a minor quibble, and does not detract from an instant awareness that the

author fully understands the meanings and readings that have been, and can be applied to street names,

architectural plans and symbolic statuary.

The main text is divided into two separate sections. The first covers Dublin in the 18th and 19th

centuries, and concentrates on the twin themes of empire and resistance. The second moves the narrative

from the point of independence in 1922 to the erection of the O’Connell Street spire. In the first half of

the book Whelan details the various imperial statues erected in Dublin such as that of Queen Victoria

outside Leinster House and Nelson’s Pillar (similar to that in Trafalgar Square, London), which was built

on Sackville Street (what is now O’Connell Street). She moves from these imperial sites, to the various

statues and memorials that were constructed, largely in the latter half of the 19th century and in the early

years of the 20th, that embraced heroes of nationalist Ireland. These monuments announced the arrival of

an anti-imperial use of public space, and Whelan is excellent in detailing how the funds for such

structures were raised from public subscription and the excitement surrounding their unveiling. At the

heart of her consideration is Sackville Street, and most impressive is her discussion of the erection of the

monuments to Daniel O’Connell (1882) and Charles Stewart Parnell (1911). Most fascinating of all is

Whelan’s encyclopaedic treatment of the naming and renaming of Dublin’s streets and bridges as the

city’s guardians moved from an embrace of empire to support for Irish nationalism and home rule. Less

obvious than the presence of public statuary, street names are shown by Whelan to be active measures of

the control of public spaces in a shifting political climate.

The post-independence section of Whelan’s book could have readily fallen short of the high standards

set by that covering the imperial period. If anything, however, the second half of the book is stronger.

Whether this is a product of a more fluid political situation or a more readily identifiable state-building

project is uncertain, but Whelan offers a coverage of the period through plans, buildings and statuary

which can be read as an alternative history of twentieth century Ireland. Most appealing, solely for their

exotic nature, are the detailed plans put forward by Abercrombie for the complete re-design of Dublin.

First conceived prior to the First World War, but more urgently needed when revealed to the public in

1922, the plans offered the opportunity for the complete reconstruction of Dublin in the wake of

revolution. On a scale not dissimilar to Speer’s re-working of Berlin, Abercrombie’s plans would have

made Dublin, architecturally at least, into one of the leading European cities. Whelan teases out the

meanings behind the architect’s plans, and demonstrates how the re-design of public space in the wake of

independence would have made Dublin a more overtly Irish and Catholic capital. The plans came to

nothing because of obvious financial constraints, but despite these shortages, the governmental and city

authorities did embark on a process of reclamation and change.

Whelan illustrates how certain revolutionary and historic figures were projected to the public through

statuary and street renaming, and how others—those of an imperial pedigree—were removed by force or

design. Some like Queen Victoria were taken away by the state to later re-surface outside a Sydney shopping

centre, while others, such as Nelson’s Pillar, were destroyed by republican sympathisers. The book ends with

Reviews / Journal of Historical Geography 30 (2004) 419–447 421

an analysis of the recent redesign of O’Connell Street and an assessment of whether projects such as the spire

mark a move away from a national discourse to one which is postmodern and apolitical.

In its entirety the book is a fascinating exploration of how public space has been used in Dublin, and

how the shifting sands of Anglo-Irish relations and politics can be understood through that medium. The

book is plentifully—and, given its subject matter, usefully-illustrated, and the reference and

bibliography sections demonstrate well the amount of work that was involved in the project. Given

the core argument in the book that the spaces where these buildings and statues were constructed are

public, and therefore open to interpretation and reading, a more aggressive analysis of the reception of

these public sites would have improved the text. The book’s greatest strength is the sheer number of

public sites that it deals with. However, by necessity, because there is so much to deal with, the treatment

of individual sites is at times brief. Whelan is strongest on exploring why and how public sites were

constructed, and in explaining their financing and erection. By perhaps choosing a smaller number of

sites, or else taking representative ones as case studies, it would have been possible to better interrogate

how these sites were received, and the meanings that the public who constantly lived with such

ideologically driven buildings and statues gave to them. Such criticism is however minor: this is an

invaluable text for those needing to understand more about Dublin or seeking a model for the assessment

of public spaces and their meanings in other geographical settings.

Mike Cronin

Faculty of Humanities

De Montfort University

UK

doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2004.03.002

Michael Sappol, A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-

Century America, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002, xii þ 430 pages, £24.95 hardback.

Acquiring dead bodies was a problem for nineteenth-century physicians. Michael Sappol takes as the

root of his thorough and intriguing monograph the movement of cadavers to and from their dissection

rooms, from grave to slab to public imagination. We learn about the meanings of the corpse and the uses

and practices, audiences and spaces for anatomical knowledge.

This is an American study, but the parallels with the British case are striking; on both sides of the

Atlantic, dissection had been the fate of criminals, but the expanding medical education establishment

led teachers to exploit less-than-savoury acquisition routes to obtain cadavers. The public response in

both countries was outrage, and medical schools fell victim to riots as mobs vented their fury at the

desecration of graves. Anatomy bills designed to provide medical schools with the bodies of the

unclaimed poor began to be enforced by individual states from 1831, a year before the British Anatomy

Act. Ruth Richardson has explored the latter in her epic Death, Dissection and the Destitute (Weidenfeld

and Nicholson 2001 (new edition)). The challenge, for Sappol, was to illuminate the differences—how to

bring out the contingencies of the American story, and how to advance the field beyond Richardson’s

expert contribution. This he seeks to accomplish by bringing to bear an impressive range of

Reviews / Journal of Historical Geography 30 (2004) 419–447422