As the title suggests, this is a survey of some of the greatest gardens of the world, presented through magnificent photographic images and the descriptions of legendary garden designer and writer Hobhouse. Shown here are the oases of the Middle East, the gardens of Chinese scholars, Japanese sages and Renaissance humanists, French baroque gardens, the English landscape gardens of Capability Brown and his followers. Here too are the gardens of the great modern designers, among them Roberto Burle Marx, Fernando Caruncho, Dan Kiley, John Brookes and James van Sweden.

Published in association with an exhibition at the Chicago Botanic Garden