"These qualms aside, Paradoxes of Green is a thoughtful contribution to the developing design anthropology literature, highlighting the at-times divergent meanings of a colour, exploring the networks that support it, and demonstrating the capacity for ethnography to provide a layered account of these complexities. Moreover, this book is a unique discussion of Bahraini history and a detailed account of the ways in which literal greening is a troubled substitute for ecologically sensitive development."
"Despite the colorful history and identity of landscapes – whether the Irish countryside, American agrarian plains, or Persian Gulf deserts – color, and by extension actionable anthropological methods, has been conspicuously absent from recent discourse in the built environment. Paradoxes of Green offers a fresh perspective."
"This work should be considered a major achievement for its exploration of the diverse landscapes of Bahrain and their continuous production and transformation, presented in an accessible manner which nevertheless does not reduce its challenging complexity."
"To identify Gareth Doherty’s Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State as a multi-disciplinary investigation into ecological urbanism understates the book’s extraordinary reach into disciplines ranging from cultural anthropology, environmental design and urban planning to Middle Eastern Studies, political economy and landscape architecture... Borrowing from pictorial processes, Doherty juxtaposes color resonance with acute cultural analysis to create a conceptual abstraction comparable to a Pollock or Kandinsky whose paintings provided the inspiration for the book."
"Paradoxes of Green is thoughtfully and accessibly written, and the author’s self-conscious allusions to the tradition of ethnographic fieldwork in classical anthropology gives the text a narrative dimension that was often found in the early decades of the discipline."
"With the title of Doherty’s book clearly identifying ‘green’ as its subject, it is no surprise that not just that particular colour – green – but colour generally is a theoretical underpinning of the book and potentially its most novel contribution."
"The dazzling achievement of Paradoxes of Green is its eloquent and clear negotiation of the tricky problem of color from two points of view: on high, at the level of theory, and on the ground, where his personal observations give this important book such vitality. Gareth Doherty’s multidisciplinary range is breathtaking—essential to any consideration of color and its impact—and his deep knowledge of the region is impressive. This is an invaluable contribution to the understanding of an immensely challenging topic."—Charles A. Riley II, Professor of English, Baruch College, City University of New York, and author of Color Codes
"An utterly original, keenly observed ethnography, a thick description of the color green in the complex urban setting of Manama, Bahrain, by a landscape architect who walks its streets with only a camera, notebook, and water-coloring kit in hand. We absorb some insightful lessons about colors and their objects, not to mention the surprising roles of color—symbolic and practical—in urban design. Most profoundly for anthropologists, he demonstrates the importance of design to our understanding of urbanism and its materialities, and does so in delightful prose, laced with a sly sense of humor that is as engaging as it is trenchant. Brilliantly conceived at the intersection of architecture, urban design, anthropology, and Middle East studies, this is a truly interdisciplinary work, guaranteed to interest a wide readership."—Steven C. Caton, Khaled Bin Abdullah Bin Abdulrahman Al Saud Professor of Contemporary Arab Society, Harvard University
"Based on fieldwork in the small and arid Kingdom of Bahrain, Doherty forensically examines and expands what is currently understood by 'green.' Exploring the role human experience plays in framing a complex layering of meaning and significance in landscape and urbanism, Doherty artfully demonstrates how color and landscape are instrumental in shaping social relationships. This deeply profound book is not just for students and practitioners of landscape architecture and design, but for those interested in a radically different kind of ecology."—Kathryn Moore, Professor of Landscape Architecture, Birmingham City University, UK
"Paradoxes of Green offers a masterclass in conducting ethnography and crafting a text. It moves to the top of my list of ethnographic classics.”
—Dan Rose, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, author of Ethnographic Writing, Energy Transition and the Local Community and Black American Street Life.
