Wessex: A Landscape History
By (author) Hadrian Cook
Paperback (Published)
(April 2024)
ISBN: 9781803275352
6.85 x 9.65 inches
Price: $56.00
In stock
Wessex is famous for its coasts, heaths, woodlands, chalk downland, limestone hills and gorges, settlements and farmed vales. This book provides an account of the physical form, development and operation of its landscape as it was shaped by our ancestors. Major themes include the development of agriculture, settlements, industry and
Wessex is famous for its coasts, heaths, woodlands, chalk downland, limestone hills and gorges, settlements and farmed vales. This book provides an account of the physical form, development and operation of its landscape as it was shaped by our ancestors. Constituting no modern political entity, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom and archaeological province of ‘Wessex’ may be defined by its natural resources and connectivity by both land and sea, for its borders include the English Channel and Severn Estuary. Following the tundra environments that dominated south of the ice sheets during the past two million years, the Wessex area experienced dramatic changes in climate, something reflected in its soils and vegetation cover. Humans hunted in the ‘wildwood’ established after the Ice Age, then cleared the land for agriculture and settlement in a 6,000 year old process. In more recent times, areas of cultural importance and nature conservation have been established as well as a thriving economy based largely on natural resources, trade and manufactures. The region comprises the counties of Hampshire (including the Isle of Wight), Dorset, Wiltshire, historic Somerset, and Berkshire. Whether through Thomas Hardy, a water company service area, or a royal title, Wessex has lingered in the imagination and secured its place in the construction of English history. The reader is taken through not only the physical landscape, but also the human institutions that have affected its evolution, including manors, great estates, monasteries and hunting forests; major themes include the development of agriculture, settlements, industry and transport.
Preface: Mesolithic, Malthus and mangelwurzels
Introduction: Where and what is Wessex?
Chapter 1: The region that is Wessex
Chapter 2: Utilisation of natural resources
Chapter 3: Environmental governance and change
Chapter 4: Floodplains, levels and marshes
Chapter 5: The Vales
Chapter 6: More than just calcium carbonate and grass?
Chapter 7: Heathland and upland moorland
Chapter 8: Woods and forests
Chapter 9: Between two seas
Chapter 10: Landscape, value and change
Index
- By (author) Hadrian Cook
‘It is engagingly written, and well-illustrated throughout, making for a fascinating study of a region of diverse character.’ – Stephen Rippon (2024): Current Archaeology Issue 412
—
Similar Books
Reframing Restoration
Rwanda Re-photographed 100 Years Later or the Reconstruction of Landscape Memory
The Archaeology of Irrigation Technology and Water Management in the Islamic World
Proceedings of the Bahrain Conference, January 2024
Die “Schweizer Ärztinnen” der Habsburgermonarchie
Weibliche Karrieren, Handlungsspielräume und Grenzüberschreitungen im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert
Ernst Haeckel: Ausgewählte Briefwechsel. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe. Bd. 22
Korrespondenz zu Weltanschauung, Kunst und Literatur. Österreich und Schweiz August 1894 – August 1914
Forschen und Übersetzen
Translation im (früh)modernen Wissenschaftssystem am Beispiel Frankreichs (1600–1815)
Kontroverse Sicherheit
Atomwirtschaft und Kernenergiediskussion in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1975–1992)
Nouvelles normes, surtout pas de panique! / Neue Normen, nur keine Panik!
Reguler les pollutions en Suisse a l'age industriel / Umweltverschmutzung und Regulierung in der industrialisierten Schweiz
Socialitas, urbanitas, humanitas
Die Leipziger Sozietäten im 17. Jahrhundert zwischen Späthumanismus, lutherischer Orthodoxie und Frühaufklärung