A history of post-war playgrounds and their enduring legacy. After World War II, a new kind of playground emerged in Northern Europe and North America. Rather than slides, swings, and roundabouts, these new playgrounds encouraged children to build shacks and invent their own entertainment.
Playgroundstells the story of how waste grounds and bombsites were transformed into hives of activity by children and progressive educators. It shows how a belief in the imaginative capacity of children shaped a new kind of playground and how designers reimagined what playgrounds could be. Ben Highmore tells a compelling story about pioneers, designers, and charities—and above all—about the value of play.
Ben Highmoreis professor of cultural studies at the University of Sussex. His books include
Lifestyle Revolution: How Taste Changed Class in Late 20th-Century Britain.
"Highmore has found another way to describe the grueling close of the twentieth century: as a thoughtless circumscription of the places, and therefore the reasons, for play . . . He takes playgrounds very seriously—academically, yes, but with the passion of one who’s been too long at the monkey bars."
"A history of playgrounds with useful insights about children in modern urban Western societies. . . . Clear writing and organization, photos (some in color), and notes complete this study. . . . Recommended."
"[An] intriguing and readable book . . . This history is succinct and wide-ranging, with several specific case studies, and plenty of photographs . . . Highmore is optimistically adamant that we need to reconsider play and its relationship to growing up, andPlaygroundsprovides plenty of evidence and discussion to back up his argument."
"In the decades following the Second World War, playgrounds developed into radical sites for childhood experimentation. Ben Highmore hlÀ
![Playgrounds: The Experimental Years [Hardcover]](/itemImage/2/5/6/1/2_6882162.jpg "Playgrounds: The Experimental Years [Hardcover]")