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A Valuable Book that Will be Welcomed by all Country-Lovers
This book, written by a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, tells the story of the forces, human and natural, which shaped the landscape of the British Isles. Examples of the sort of ground it covers are given by Dr Rackham in his opening paragraph, when he says that in his childhood he wondered why roads had bends, why lanes were sunk into the ground, what dogwood and spindle were doing in the hedges, why fields were of odd shapes, and why elms stopped abruptly just north of Bungay. (A town in Norfolk, where he grew up). The book represents his attempts to answer these questions, and many others like them.

The book is not written in strict chronological order from the Ice Age to the 20th century (the book was written in 1986); Dr Rackham rather treats each different type of habitat- woodland, fields, heathland, moorland, marshes, etc.- in turn. He describes each type of habitat and then traces its development over time from prehistory to the present. In addition, there are chapters setting out his methods and the type of evidence he relies on, and dealing with Britain's native flora and fauna, especially those species which have become extinct in historical times (bears, wolves, wild boar) or which have been introduced by man (rabbits, fallow deer, pheasants, sycamore trees).

Dr Rackham lays to rest a few well-worn myths about the countryside. It is not, for example, true, as is sometimes said, that mediaeval England was a densely wooded country which a squirrel could have crossed from coast to coast without ever setting foot on the ground, before the dense woodlands were destroyed to provide timber for the Royal Navy. Certainly, prehistoric Britain was almost wholly tree-covered, but the coming of agriculture meant that most of the woods were felled. By the Middle Ages, only about 15% of the country was wooded, a higher percentage than in modern Britain but a lower one than in modern France or Germany. Much of the confusion is due to a misunderstanding of what was meant by a "forest" in mediaeval England. The term did not necessarily imply woodland- Sherwood Forest, for example, was predominantly heathland- but an area in which game, especially deer, was protected by special laws.

Nor is it true to say that the rural landscape is as much the product of deliberate human design as the urban one or, as is sometimes done by those who oppose conservationist attempts to preserve the countryside, that its current appearance is almost entirely modern, the result of the Enclosure Acts of the 18th and 19th centuries. Although Dr Rackham states that his is not primarily a book about conservation, it is written from a conservationist viewpoint, and he exposes the weaknesses of the arguments that the landscape is both modern and artificial. What we now think of as typical features of the countryside are often the result of a complex interplay of human and natural forces. Not all hedgerows, for example, were deliberately planted; many grew up naturally along the line of a fence, which has often disappeared, leaving the hedge as a semi-natural boundary feature.

Contrary to the "Enclosure Act Myth", many features of the landscape are very old. Dr Rackham distinguishes between two types of English lowland scenery, what he calls "Planned Countryside" and "Ancient Countryside". The former, which prevails in a band stretching from Dorset and northern Hampshire north-eastwards through the East Midlands to northern and western East Anglia, Lincolnshire and the East Riding, was the area which was once dominated by the tradition, dating back to the Middle Ages, of open-field farming. The latter, which prevails throughout the rest of lowland England, mostly in the West Midlands and the South-East, was the area where this tradition was less strong and where there was a larger number of smaller fields. It was the Planned Countryside landscape which was largely affected by the Enclosure Acts; the Ancient Countryside kept many more of its traditional features. Even today there are many differences between the two types of landscape; Ancient Countryside, for example, has more roads and public footpaths, more areas of heathland, more ponds and more ancient hedgerows. Villages in Planned Countryside tend to be larger, but fewer in number.

The book is highly informative, and contained much that was new to me. I had not, for example, appreciated that before the coming of man the dominant woodland tree in most of lowland England was neither oak, nor ash, nor beech, but small-leaved lime. Oak predominated in the upland areas of England and in much of Scotland and Wales. Nor had I realised that wild boar became extinct as long ago as the mid-thirteenth century, victims of the destruction of their woodland habitat and of reckless over-hunting. King Henry III had 300 killed for his Christmas feast in 1251, at a time when they were already on the verge of extinction.

I would have two complaints about the book. The first is that it I would have welcomed more illustrations, preferably in colour. The second is that Dr Rackham tends to concentrate on certain areas at the expense of others. England is treated in greater detail than Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and certain regions of England in greater detail than others. I would have liked to see other parts of the country get as much attention as East Anglia (doubtless singled out for special treatment because the author is a native of Norfolk and a resident of Cambridgeshire). Nevertheless, this is a valuable book that will be welcomed by all country-lovers who wish to understand the countryside as well as appreciate it.
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This unique resource describes and evaluates ten of the most important events in British history between the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Glorious Revolution of 1689 and its aftermath. A full chapter is devoted to each event, and each chapter includes an introduction presenting factual information in a clear, chronological order. ... Read more

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The Poor Law had a profound impact on English society. Designed to reform the poor as much as to relieve poverty, it also shaped institutions of government and determined people's expectations and assumptions about social welfare. The English Poor Law, 1531-1782 provides a concise synthesis of recent scholarly work together with full references, explaining the origins of this unique system of welfare, and showing how it played a central role in English social and political development from the Reformation to the Industrial Revolution. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Precise, detailed and brief
Paul Slack is the author of many works regarding the socio-economic conditions of early modern England: this is one of his briefer works, yet it is wonderfully detailed and insightful. If you're interested in the topic of early modern welfare, historical treatment of the poor, and the criminalization of poverty during this time, this is the book for you. It's also a good source if you're a student doing research and/or a paper, as this text is very brief: lots of information in a condensed format. ... Read more

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AQA History is the only series of resources developed with and exclusively endorsed by AQA, providing teachers with complete confidence that they have everything they need to deliver AQA's new AS History specification. ... Read more

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Although a few details of the history of Roman Britain are well-known (Boudicca's Revolt, for example), surprisingly little has been published on everyday life in this far-flung province of the Empire. How was Hadrian's Wall built?What was life like in the Romano-British towns of Verulamium (near present-day St Albans) or Londinium?What games did Romano-British children play? Daily Life in Roman Britain covers the lives of the entire population of Roman Britain - men, women and children; slaves, freed and free people; military and civilian; indigenous peoples and incomers; rich and poor - from the Late Iron Age, when the Romans first started to show an interest in the islands of Britain, until the early 5th century when the formal occupation of Britain by the Romans came to an end.

The Roman period is the first in Britain in which individuals are known by name. Inscriptions, writing tablets and curse tablets give us intriguing glimpses into their private lives. Archaeological evidence shows us what sort of buildings these people lived in, and how they organised their domestic and work-related lives. Using such evidence, Lindsay Allason-Jones presents a lively and eye-opening picture of the lives of people from different strata of society and with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, who came together to create what we know today as Roman Britain. Her research into the topics of gender studies, military studies and the material culture of Roman Britain, and her career as the Director of the main museum for the World Heritage Site of Hadrian's Wall, make Dr Allason-Jones uniquely placed to produce a balanced and authoritative book. In it, she looks at the Roman soldiers stationed in Britain (who came from all over the Empire, bringing with them their own religions, armour, methods of fighting and even their own diet) and the trade, manufacture and administration (as well as leisure activites) which took place in the towns.She describes life on farms and villas in the countryside, and the lives of people in their homes: what clothes they wore, what meals they ate, how they raised children and spent their spare time.And she discusses the varied range of religious practices involving indigenous and imported deities.

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The Great Game originally described Britain's efforts to maintain India as a base from which to defend the Persian Gulf and southeast Asia against rival Empires. As British India's leading geostrategist during the end of the imperial rule, as well as the last British governor on the Afghan frontier, Sir Olaf Caroe saw the future of the Great Game. He predicted with remarkable acuity how the struggle for mastery in South Asia's borderlands would play out beyond the end of the Raj.
In the aftermath of 9/11, much as Caroe foretold, flashpoints continue to light up from Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf to Nepal and Burma; threats range from terrorism and insurgency to naval expansion and nuclear rivalry. India commands the vital center, its power key to the overall stability and defense of Asia.
The book examines Caroe's thinking to illuminate both the geopolitics behind India's independence in 1947 and the historical precedents of contemporary South Asian Strategy. ... Read more

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The first book of its kind to study this period, Gerry Holloway's essential student resource works chronologically from the early 1840s to the end of the twentieth century and examines over 150 years of women’s employment history.

With suggestions for research topics, an annotated bibliography to aid further research, and a chronology of important events which places the subject in a broader historical context, Gerry Holloway considers how factors such as class, age, marital status, race and locality, along with wider economic and political issues, have affected women’s job opportunities and status.

Key themes and issues that run through the book include:

• continuity and change
• the sexual division of labour
• women as a cheap labour force
• women’s perceived primary role of motherhood
• women and trade unions
• equality and difference
• education and training.

Students of women’s studies, gender studies and history will find this a fascinating and invaluable addition to their reading material.

Product Description
The Great Game originally described Britain's efforts to maintain India as a base from which to defend the Persian Gulf and southeast Asia against rival Empires. As British India's leading geostrategist during the end of the imperial rule, as well as the last British governor on the Afghan frontier, Sir Olaf Caroe saw the future of the Great Game. He predicted with remarkable acuity how the struggle for mastery in South Asia's borderlands would play out beyond the end of the Raj.
In the aftermath of 9/11, much as Caroe foretold, flashpoints continue to light up from Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf to Nepal and Burma; threats range from terrorism and insurgency to naval expansion and nuclear rivalry. India commands the vital center, its power key to the overall stability and defense of Asia.
The book examines Caroe's thinking to illuminate both the geopolitics behind India's independence in 1947 and the historical precedents of contemporary South Asian Strategy. ... Read more

Product Description

The first book of its kind to study this period, Gerry Holloway's essential student resource works chronologically from the early 1840s to the end of the twentieth century and examines over 150 years of women’s employment history.

With suggestions for research topics, an annotated bibliography to aid further research, and a chronology of important events which places the subject in a broader historical context, Gerry Holloway considers how factors such as class, age, marital status, race and locality, along with wider economic and political issues, have affected women’s job opportunities and status.

Key themes and issues that run through the book include:

• continuity and change
• the sexual division of labour
• women as a cheap labour force
• women’s perceived primary role of motherhood
• women and trade unions
• equality and difference
• education and training.

Students of women’s studies, gender studies and history will find this a fascinating and invaluable addition to their reading material.

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The author charts the development of architectural theory and practice from Elizabeth I to George IV. Questions of style, technology, and the social framework are resolved as separable but always essential components of the building worlds. ... Read more

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Change - sometimes gentle and subtle sometimes shocking and violent - is the dynamic of Schama's unapologetically personal history, especially the changes that wash over custom and habit, transforming our loyalties. At the heart of his history lie questions of compelling importance for our future as well as our past: what makes or breaks a nation - to whom do we give our allegiance and why? And where do the boundaries of our community lie - in our hearth and home, our village or city, tribe or faith? What is Britain, one country or many, one culture or several? Has British history unfolded "at the edge of the world" or right at the heart of it? All these themes are delivered to the reader in the stories which Schama tells. The great and wicked are all here - Becket and Thomas Cromwell, Robert the Bruce and Ann Boleyn, but so are countless more ordinary lives - an Irish monk waiting for the plague to kill him in his cell at Kilkenny; a small boy running through the streets of London to catch a glimpse of Elizabeth I. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

History with themes
Excellent book, beats the TV programs hands down.I particularily enjoyed the way Simon Schama weaves a series of parallel themes that lead to a logical view of the major events in British history. ... Read more

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Social history, writes G.M. Trevelyan, is "the history of a people with the politics left out". This book offers an unparalleled portrait of everyday English life, from the emergence of the English as "a racial and cultural unit" in Chaucer's day through six varied and kaleidoscopic centuries to 1901. Beneath the surface of the great changes in political and military history "social change moves like an underground river"; it is Trevelyan's unique achievement in this inspiring and evocative book to capture every tiny detail of its ebb and flow. ... Read more

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Previous textbooks on 18th and 19th century Britain have tended to be written either from a social and political standpoint, or about economics in the abstract, as if the history could be reduced to statistical analysis. The aim of this book is to incorporate the revisionist work on British economic growth, which deals impersonally in broad national aggregates, with the work of social and political historians. It stresses the connections between the economy and debates over public policy, and examines the regional variations in agriculture and industry, with particular attention to the differences between England and Scotland. Much revisionist work concerns the operation of assumed national markets; the aim of the book is to show how these markets were formed, and how a national economy was created. The British economy underwent major strucrual change over the period from 1700 to 1850, as population moved from agriculture and rural life to industry and towns.

Martin Danton gives a clear and balanced picture of the continuity and change in the early development of the world's first industrial nation. His book will become prescribed reading for all students of 18th and 19th century British history, and for economists studying the industrial revolution. ... Read more

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A detailed map of the railway network at its zenith.At the turn of the twentieth century the rail network in Britain and Ireland extended to over 23,000 miles, very nearly the circumference of the world. This was the greatest length it was ever to achieve for already some urban routes had lost the fight with electric trams and, later, culminating in the Beeching axe, hundreds of rural lines and stations were closed. This map shows the network in its heyday before the decline commenced.This map shows lines in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland with detailed enlargements of the major conurbations. The great main lines with major stations and termini are marked as well as many small village halts on the humble country branch lines. The map bears witness to the culmination of the gargantuan engineering feat which produced 23,000 route miles in the 82 years since the first 25 miles of railway was completed between Stockton and Darlington in 1825.Compare that to the less than 11,000 miles we have a century later and use the map to explore the hundreds of routes, with their stations, which ran through so many parts of the country but survived for no more than a few generations before succumbing to the march of progress which favoured alternative means of transport. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Reproduction of a fold-out map
Apparently, 1907 was the year in which the British railway network neared its peak, but it didn't sustain that peak for very long. Contraction of the network began even before the first world war, picked up pace between the wars and accelerated after the second world war culminating in the Beeching-inspired cuts. Since then, there has been a mini-revival with some old lines being re-opened, while some completely new lines have opened including the London to Paris line via the Channel Tunnel. Yet even if there is a further expansion of the network in the twenty-first century, I cannot imagine there ever again being a network comparable to that which existed in 1907.

The map itself is about the size of the average fold-out street map. About half of the space is taken up by the main island of Great Britain, together with the Isle of Man and Isle of Wight. Ireland is also featured, it being given space in the top right corner. The network is very dense in some places but larger scale insets are provided for Glasgow, Dublin, Manchester, Birmingham, London, Edinburgh, Leeds and Liverpool. Some shipping routes are also marked, but I don't think they all are.

Where space permits, a few places are marked on the map despite never having been connected to the railway network. I was surprised to find that Marshfield in Gloucestershire, where I lived for a couple of years in my childhood, was among them. Hatherleigh in Cornwall, another place that wasn't on a railway line in 1907 but is marked on the map, eventually got a station on the Halwill Junctionto Torrington line, which opened in 1925. It may well have been the last rural branch line to be constructed in Britain; if not, it was certainly among the last. Passenger services only operated for 40 years, though the china clay traffic for which the line was primarily built lasted until 1982.

In Scotland, Ullapool and Braemar are among the places marked on the map. It is noticeable that they were always some distance from the nearest railway, even in 1907. I don't know if there was ever a proposal to build a railway to Ullapool, but a plan was proposed to build one from Aberdeen to Braemar. Queen Victoria didn't want a railway going anywhere near Balmoral so that didn't happen. A railway was built from Aberdeen along the proposed route as far as Ballater, perhaps with the hope that the royal family would relent, but the extension was never built. Elsewhere, there seem to be big areas in southern Scotland that never got a railway, but the people of England and Wales (even those living in Marshfield) were never far from a railway in 1907. It is all so different now.

I can imagine that it was quite a difficult map for any traveller to read in 1907, but it was at least a handy size for carrying around. Regular travellers would surely have wanted to invest in an atlas of some kind, to study the detail at home even if it was too bulky to carry around. In much the same way, I find it to be a handy quick reference, but I still usually have to go to the library to look up a specialist atlas.

A 12-page booklet comes with the map, with some useful explanatory notes. Among other things, it points out that the direct GWR route to Birmingham had not been completed in 1907, but eventually opened in 1910. This leaves me wondering why 1907 was chosen rather than 1910, as I don't know of any closures that took place in that period.

This map is interesting curiosity and useful for research up to a point, but anybody wanting to do serious research needs either a period road atlas with the railway lines marked or, better still, a specialist railway atlas such as Jowett`s (the one I look up in the library). ... Read more

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When the British Labour party announced the withdrawal of British forces from the Persian Gulf in January 1968, the United States faced a potential power vacuum in the area. The incoming Nixon administration, preoccupied with the Soviet Union and China, and the war in Vietnam, had no intention of replacing the British in the Gulf. To avoid further military commitments, the US encouraged Iran and Saudi Arabia to maintain area security. A critical policy decision, overlooked by most scholars, saw Nixon and Kissinger engineer the rise in oil prices between 1969 and 1972 to enable Saudi Arabia and Iran to purchase the necessary military hardware to serve as guardians of the Gulf.For all their bluster about reversing Labour's withdrawal decision, after their surprise victory in the election of June 1970 the Conservatives adhered to Labour's policy. But in contrast to Labour's wish to cut the umbilical cord of empire, the Tories wanted to retain influence in the Persian Gulf, pursuing policies largely independent of the US by the creation of the United Arab Emirates, deposing the sultan of Oman, and trying to solve the dispute over the Buraimi oasis with Saudi Arabia.By trying to maintain its empire on the cheap, Britain turned into an arms supplier supreme. But offering and selling arms does not make a foreign policy, leaving Britain in the long run with less influence in regional affairs. This was true also for the US, whose arms sales were to prove no realistic an alternative to foreign policy.The US hid under the Iranian security blanket for almost a decade. Given the weakness of the regime and the Shah's nonsensical dreams of turning Iran into one of the top five industrial and military powers in the world, the policy was cavalierly irresponsible. Similarly, leaving Saudi Arabia wallowing in oil money and medieval stupor - a seedbed for Islamic fundamentalists - created major future problems for the United States, as evinced by 9/11. ... Read more

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Britain under the reign of the Tudors and Stuarts was a country marked by extraordinary and dramatic change.These were the centuries of the Reformation, civil wars, and two revolutions; a time of upheaval that saw the trials and executions of two monarchs, two wives of a king, and two Archbishops of Canterbury; and a time of religious controversy that resulted in the torture or burning of hundreds of ordinary people. But this was also the time that saw an explosion of literacy and the printed word, transformations in landscapes and townscapes, new forms of wealth, new structures of power, and new forms of political participation that freed minds and broadened horizons in the generations from 1485 to 1689. In this exciting and richly illustrated new work, eighteen leading scholars explore the political, social, religious, and cultural history of this tumultuous time.
From the maneuverings of rulers and powerbrokers, both religious and secular, to the profound social and cultural changes that affected the lives of ordinary men and women throughout Britain--indeed, throughout the world--The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain offers the most authoritative history of this great age ever published. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Masterfully Researched If Pessimistic Work
American visitors to Britain are frequently amazed at the vast numbers of black British citizens inhabiting those lands. Peter Fryer does a splendid job of tracing their history from the days of Roman conquest up until thepresent day. This book is written in substantial part as commentary, in aneasy, accesable style.Unfortunately, and perhaps indicative of a liberalpaternalistic bent, Fryer never views the history of black Britons asanything but troubled and strife filled. Though it is clear that theBritish held a complicit and major role in the transatlantic slave trade,Fryer is unwilling to laud or commend the treatment of black people livingin Britain during this period. There is a glaring omission in his failureto juxtapose the treatment and application of justice endured by blackpeople living in the Americas with those living in Britain during the 18th,19th and 20th Centuries. In the concluding chapter Fryer continues to dwellon the plight of contemporary black Britons rather than highlighting theirsucesses; no mention for instance of a growing and thriving black middleclass or increasing numbers in the higher professions. But these are reallyincidental criticisms, since Fryer's book never fails to inform, educateand even entertain the reader on the subject, and on that basis it must berecommended. ... Read more