Description
Reviews
John Fraser Hart's study of the ever-changing rural landscape is a competent and richly illustrated account of human endeavour, charting patterns of land use across time and space, from the small cross-ploughed fields of Neolithic Britain to the vast wheat-producing plains of modern-day America. It reveals how history is continuously incorporated into the landscape.Times Literary SupplementHart has a keen eye, a facile pen, and a love for conversation with people who live and work in such places. The result is an admirable and wide-ranging book.Agricultural HistoryA wonderful record to have between two covers... well produced with photographs of exceptional clarity.The Times Higher Education SupplementThis layperson's guide to the rural landscape, written by one of the world's foremost experts, treats the contemporary rural landscape not as an artifact of the past but rather as a continuing product of human impacts on nature. John Fraser Hart makes clear how history gets reincorporated continuously as each generation makes changes in the landscape to suit its own needs.John C. Hudson, Northwestern UniversityNo one knows our rural landscapes better than John Fraser Hart and no one has written as clearly and tellingly about them. He tells us what all those visible patterns and structures really mean in terms of life and work and the larger forces that impinge upon them. This is a richly illustrated and informative work about our constantly changing countryside.D. W. Meinig, Syracuse University