In Brightening from the East Ken Worpole explores a unique 'region of the mind' -the Thames Estuary and the marshland landscapes of the East Anglian shoreline. In this wide-ranging collection of essays, personal and historical, Worpolebrings us the stories of radical communities, of arcadian dreams among theshabby plotlands of eastern England, of new ways of living. He ranges furtherafield too, writing on Italian cemeteries, Dutch landscape architects and theEnglish twentieth century folk revival. Here Worpole convincingly argues thatthe Essex landscape has always been a refuge for new ideas, and a place wherepractical idealism could flourish, a place the world might learn from. Brighteningfrom the East also contains Worpole's influential essay, 'The New EnglishLandscape'.