Paradise Lost

Rural Idyll and Social Change Since 1800

Jeremy Burchardt

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9781860645143
• eBook ISBN: 9780857715531
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

The enduring 'Town versus Country' debate lies at the root of modern British society. How far did the idealization of the countryside by artists and writers since the Industrial Revolution foster anti-urban, anti-industrial values? How have such values affected government policy, social structure and economic dynamism? Did post-war developments, in particular rural-urban commuting and environmentalist criticism of modern 'industrial' farming, undermine the traditional distinction between town and country, or are they themselves symptoms of the continuing allure of the rural idyll? This book will demonstrate the remarkable influence that attitudes to the countryside have had on the evolution of modern British life.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Industrialization and Urbanization
• Chapter 2 Literature and the Countryside, c.1800 to c.1870
• Chapter 3 Radicalism and the Land, c.1790 to c.1850
• Chapter 4 Gardens, Allotments and Parks
• Chapter 5 Model Villages and Garden Cities
• Chapter 6 Literary Attitudes to the Countryside in the Later Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
• Chapter 7 Land Reform After 1850
• Chapter 8 Preservationism, ‘Englishness’ and the Rise of Planning, c.1880–1939
• Chapter 9 The Economic Consequences of Rural Nostalgia
• Chapter 10 Rambling
• Chapter 11 The Organic Movement Before and During the Second World War
• Chapter 12 Rural Reconstruction Between the Wars
• Chapter 13 Rural Change and the Legislative Framework, 1939 to 2000
• Chapter 14 Agriculture and the Environment
• Chapter 15 Recreation in the Countryside Since the Second World War
• Chapter 16 Intra-village Social Change and Attitudinal Conflict in the Twentieth Century
• Chapter 17 Town, Country and Politics at the End of the Twentieth Century
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index