A revisionist look at the true state of rural England between the two world wars. England is the country, and the country is England, as Stanley Baldwin famously said in 1924, but what kind of country was it? There are persistent memories of depression and depopulation, of dilapidated villages and deserted country houses, in a period of bitter discontent and disturbance when the brief febrile excitements of the 1920s gave way to the thirties, Auden's "low dishonest decade". Recent work has radically modified the history of the interwar years, but largely from an urban and industrial viewpoint. Hitherto this revisionist perspective has left unquestioned one of the central components of the old orthodoxy: that this was a period of unremitting, unmitigated decline in the countryside. In The English Countryside Between the Wars an interdisciplinary group of scholars have come together to challenge this view. Organised into sections on society, culture, politics and the economy,and embracing subjects as diverse as women novelists and village crafts, the book argues that almost everywhere we look in the countryside between the wars there were signs of new growth and dynamic development. This will be required reading for everyone with an interest in British history between the wars and to lecturers, teachers and students studying social, cultural, political, economic and environmental history, historical and cultural geography, English literature, performance studies and art and design history. Contributors: ALUN HOWKINS, CAITLIN ADAMS, MARION SHAW, MARK RAWLINSON, MICK WALLIS, DAVID JEREMIAH, CHRISTOPHER BAILEY, JOHN SHEAIL, CLARE GRIFFITHS, NICHOLAS MANSFIELD, ROY BRIGDEN

About the Author
PAUL BRASSLEY is an Honorary University Fellow in the Centre for Rural Policy Research at the University of Exeter Dr Jeremy Burchardt is Lecturer in Rural History at the University of Reading. Dr Jeremy Burchardt is Lecturer in Rural History at the University of Reading. PAUL BRASSLEY is an Honorary University Fellow in the Centre for Rural Policy Research at the University of Exeter

Reviews
Recommended. * CHOICE *
Future generations will find this volume of seminal importance in the writing, rewriting, and reshaping of interwar rural history. [...] The editors are to be congratulated on a most commendable and well-executed initiative. * ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW *
This is an excellent volume, which opens up a vital new area of historical enquiry, and yet at the same time manages to provide a general overview of the period, one which is unlikely to be superseded for many years. It should be essential reading for all those in the history of the countryside in the twentieth century. * RURAL HISTORY *
Provides a rich set of studies broadening our understanding of rural life in the period. * TWENTIETH CENTURY BRITISH HISTORY *
[A] fascinating and welcome volume. [...] The editors have produced an innovative and important book which will stimulate new research in the inter-war English countryside. * HISTORY *



Book Information
ISBN 9781843832645
Author Paul Brassley
Format Hardback
Page Count 280
Imprint The Boydell Press
Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Weight(grams) 1g