The City as Text: The Politics of Landscape Interpretation in the Kandyan Kingdom

In this book James Duncan convincingly argues that landscapes are not only culturally produced, but that they also influence governing ideas of political and religious life. He analyzes this dialectic relationship between landscape and the pursuit of power in the royal capital of Kandy in the central highlands of Sri Lanka during the early years of the nineteenth century and demonstrates how the Kandyan landscape was consciously produced to further the perceived interests of the Kandyan kings. Using extensive archival sources, architectural analysis and mapping, the author reveals how the landscape was designed to foster a certain hegemonic reading that spoke of the power, benevolence and legitimacy of the kings in their capital.