Great gardens have been made on the fringes of Central Asia for over 5000 years. They form an arc which, running from the Fertile Crescent, curls west into Europe and east into China and Japan. The arc was a zone of interchange: a vast landscape in which herders encountered farmers and the design of symbolic gardens began.

When nomads became settlers, they retained a love of mobility, hunting and wild places. In Iran, Aryan settlers made hunting parks known as paradises. They were walled enclosures stocked with exotic plants and animals. The great landscape parks of ancient China were used for similar purposes but also had a sacred role. Mesopotamia has the oldest textual records. The early parks and gardens of Asia symbolized both wild nature and civilized nature, sometimes conceived as the realms of the Sky God and the Earth Mother. Garden design was influenced by Polytheist, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Daoist, Shinto and Modernist beliefs. Asian Gardens: History, beliefs and design explores how these belief systems influenced the design of gardens.

Tom Turner has researched and taught the history, theory and design of gardens for forty years. His visits, research, drawings and photographs are brought together in this detailed study of the history of gardens in West Asia, Central Asia, the Indian Subcontinent and East Asia. The studies extend from the beginnings of garden making to the present day. Using maps, diagrams and photographs, Tom Turner reviews the principles of garden design, and explores how and why Asian gardens have developed their characteristic forms and functions.