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about many aspects of the subject. In some districts, the study of medieval fields has scarcely begun. Under these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that several chapters rely heavily on post-medieval evidence and that the account, whether progressive or retrogressive, eventually founders for want of evidence. Elsewhere, while the lay-out of the fields is known, there is an absence of information about cropping systems and methods of land management generally. In yet other areas, the processes of change are imperfectly perceived. still less understood.

At the same time, the way ahead is constantly indicated. The unexciting but necessary task of clarifying an ambiguous terminology demands further attention. So too do the forms and dispositions of early human settlement. Here the archaeologist can help. The work of German and Scandinavian scholars especially assumes new relevance in the light of material presented in this book. There is much to be discovered about customs of inheritance and about the course of population change. For some places and periods a wealth of documentary evidence awaits detailed investigation.

A survey such as this, imperfect though it was bound to be, was long overdue. Studies of field systems in the British Isles marks a significant stage in our understanding of an important and complex subject.

University of Hull A. HARRIS

H. C. DARBY (Ed.), A New Historical Geography of England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Pp. xiv + 767. &13*00)

Forty years ago, under the editorship of H. C. Darby and with ten contributors, An historical geography of EngZand before A. D. 1800 went to press. In the intervening years, it has run through several editions and established itself as a standard text. At the same time, the scope of historical geography has broadened and its methodology has changed. Twenty years after the publication of the Historical geography, H. C. Darby reviewed it retrospectively (Geographical Journal, 126, 1960), assessed the developments that had taken place in the subject and anticipated the form of a successor. The successor is A new historical geography of England, in which nine contributors and the editor present their version of “the march of the developing landscape”.

The structure of the New historical geography follows closely that outlined in the 1960 paper. The “sequence of cross-sections taken at successive periods” is much more precisely defined than in the original volume. The “intervening chapters dealing with the economic changes that gave successive landscapes a new look” claim equal space to the cross-sections, The introductory chapter bases the entire work firmly upon Anglo- Scandinavian foundations, looking to place names as a key to the progress of settlement and setting the stage for the first cross-section of England at the time of Domesday. The succeeding cross-sections are of England around the time of the Lay Subsidy of 1334 (R. E. Glasscock), c. 1600 (F. V. Emery), 1800 (H. C. Prince), 1850 (J. B. Harley) and 1900 (Peter Hall). The time men as well as the space men (to use Stephen Spender’s words) are also geographers. The connecting narratives between the cross-sections are by R. A. Donkin (‘early middle ages’), Alan Baker (‘later middle ages’), H. C. Darby (‘the age of the improver, 1600-18007, Alan Harris (1800-1850) and J. T. Coppock (1850-1900). Most chapters have a common plan-proceeding from population and settlement, through the countryside, industry (textiles, mining, metal working and, later, various manufactures), transport, trade (coastal and overseas), to towns and cities (generally concluding with observations on the great and growing wen of London).

The original Historical geography was defined in its preface as “in a sense, experi- mental”. There is no dearth of experiment among the present generation of historical geographers, who have acquired their fair share of technical and statistical expertise and have familiarised themselves with methodologies in cognate disciplines. But the New historical geography is the product of experience rather than experiment. It bears the

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mark of maturity that derives from the long study of primary sources and the assimilation of a great range of scholarly publication. In aspiring to produce what John Speed might have called “exact geographies” of the English scene, it employs to the full the contribution of the post-war generation of historical geographers and socio-economic historians. And this contribution embodies the results of new methods of analysis of familiar materials of varying quality and coverage as well as the exploration and evalua- tion of new evidence. The measure of these investigations at large is evident in the gener- ous footnotes and in 156 maps and diagrams, many of which are original. Indeed, the maps and diagrams provide a minor atlas of historical geography in their own right. In other contexts they could (and sometimes do) merit pages of accompanying text. They are the product of the painstaking--and often prodigious-labours of one of England’s most experienced cartographers, G. R. Versey. Yet, despite investigations in depth which enable the New historical geography to present a much fuller and more satsifactory picture than its predecessor, the editor recalls some of the major tasks that await attention-comprehensive treatment of the Tithe Returns of the 184Os, of the Census Returns from 1801 onwards and of enclosure in general. In other words, there is plenty to absorb the energies of future teams of historical geographers.

At a time when the criterion of relevance prevails and when so many geographers have moved into the applied field, it merits comment that the appeal of historical geography remains steady and that it is to this systematic area of the subject that the most expensive geographical book on the British market belongs. It does not take long to discover that. independently of the new perspectives that it will give to all who appreciate England’s cultural landscape, the New historical geography has immediate relevance for understand- ing the present-day economic scene. The book ends at 1900 and the last chapter is the longest. It is a long haul from the simple list of contents to the excellent twenty-page index. lt is a broad span from the time when Saxon fire was licking “the western ocean with its red and savage tongue” to the late Victorian dialogue with holidaying mill- hands as they savoured perceptively the promenade and boarding houses of Blackpool. Since then, the pace of change has accelerated so rapidly that any future editor who aspires to carry the cross-sections into the twentieth century will find that to equate the most recent of them with those of the remoter past he must reduce his time intervals to twenty-five years.

University College London W. R. MEAD

J. FOSTER, Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution: Early Industrial Capitalism in Three English Towns (London: Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1974. Pp. 346. &6*00)

The study of urban history has undergone a considerable revival of late. The overall significance of the materials now being assembled is difficult to assess because much urban history is myopic in its conception, reluctant to grapple with the really big questions. Most practitioners in the field seem to believe that when, and only when, all the materials have been assembled will the pieces fall into place and the mystery of social and economic change be explained. Yet urban history can shed a great deal of light on the transformation from feudalism to capitalism as well as on the social and economic dyna- mics of a capitalist society which has continuously transformed itself since its inception.

John Foster’s book on Class struggle and the industrial revolution is detailed urban history, largely about Oldham but with some comparative materials from Nottingham and South Shields, written with these broader questions in mind. It is a pioneering work in many respects but above all it demonstrates that the details of what happened on the ground can successfully be fused with a discussion of broad issues of social and economic change during the industrial revolution. John Foster has produced a masterly book which, although it may be criticised in its details and even its broad conclusions disputed, must surely be recognised instantly as a pioneering classic.

I/I-H