This 1980 anthology contains of some of the finest and most significant writing on English country life from Cobbett through Jefferies, Sturt, hardy, Hudson and Flora Thompson to Thomas Hennell and Adrian Bell. A good many of the selections are taken from books originally published by Cambridge University Press. None of the authors is nostalgic about country life. They all wanted a better future for country people but their primary aim was to describe what they saw. A survey is offered of the peasant civilisation of England, which, despite widespread poverty and hardship, encouraged people to go on living and produced a wealth of folk song and a wide range of craft-work. The authors go on to record the changes brought about by large-scale farming and the concomitant heavy investment in machinery and chemicals. Denys Thompson anticipates the anthology as a reminder of human achievement and potential, and his substantial general and sectional introductions show how the lessons and values of the past can be used to revitalise an industrial civilisation.
