Rural - The Lives of the Working Class Countryside

Rural shows the British countryside as it truly is'' MALACHY TALLACK ''A wonderful book, beautifully conceived'' ADAM NICOLSON ''A thoughtful, moving, honest book that questions what it means to belong to a place when it can never belong to you'' CAL FLYN Work in the countryside ties you, soul and salary, to the land, but often those who labour in nature have the least control over what happens there. Starting with Rebecca Smith''s own family history - foresters in Cumbria, miners in Derbyshire, millworkers in Nottinghamshire, builders of reservoirs and the Manchester Ship Canal - Rural is an exploration of our green and pleasant land, and the people whose labour has shaped it. Beautifully observed, these are the stories of professions and communities that often go overlooked. Smith shows the precarity for those whose lives are entangled in the natural landscape. And she traces how these rural working-class worlds have changed. As industry has transformed - mines closing, country estates shrinking, farmers struggling to make profit on a pint of milk, holiday lets increasing so relentlessly that local people can no longer live where they were born - we are led to question the legacy of the countryside in all our lives. This is a book for anyone who loves and longs for the countryside, whose family owes something to a bygone trade, or who is interested in the future of rural Britain.

Product details

• Authors: Rebecca Smith
• Publisher: William Collins
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 08.06.2023
• EAN: 9780008526276
• ISBN: 978-0-00-852627-6
• Dimensions: 159 mm x 240 mm x 30 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business > Biographies, autobiographies; 20th Century, HISTORY / Social History, Memoirs, Social & cultural history, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Rural, 21st Century, 21st century history: from c 2000 -, Rural communities, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, 21st century, c 2000 to c 2100, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Social and cultural history, Social classes, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Social Classes & Economic Disparity, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs