W.J.T Mitchell’s Imperial Landscape reminds me of our previous reading Harley’s Deconstructing the Map. Neither the landscape nor the maps should be showing the exercise of power over them, but the influence is inevitable. For the maps, we can see “how they extend and reinforce the legal statutes, territorial imperatives, and values stemming from the exercise of political power” (Harley 11). Meanwhile, the imperialism over landscape does not only shows in how artists portray the sceneries, but also shows in the landscape itself–or more accurately, how we perceive the landscape. Since the presence of exercise power is almost omniscient, there is no way we can see the landscape and maps in an absolutely objective way. Both the landscape and maps are presenting themselves, and though such presence seems unchanged over time, how we understand it altered as the society and the historical context around us changed.