Richard Muir – Författare

An entirely new text for students of political geography following in the footsteps of the author's highly successful Modern Political Geography. Unlike other texts in this field it takes a broad and inclusive view of its subject matter, a pluralist and humanistic approach, and combines coverage of theory and empirical developments drawn from a wide range of countries throughout.

In an age when building developments seem to be advancing on every small plot of unspolit countryside, it seems hard to imagine times when well-established settlements were declining and dying. Such times certainly did exist, and thousands of villages have perished. All the evidence is that villages can be lost and that a period of widespread abandonment might well return. Deserted settlement sites are all around us and all British people will live within very few miles of an example. Most of the settlements perished in the medieval period, when the dwellings were flimsy and prone to decay. Empty houses only stand at the relatively recent settlements, like failed quarry villages. In several of the more evocative cases, a ruined church presides over the deserted site.

This is the story of the shaping, over several millennia, of a valley community of the Yorkshire Dales. The valley is Nidderdale, a brooding and watery place which takes its name from the Celtic/Danish for valley of the brilliant or sparkling water. Here, a simple sufficiency flourished over time, influences by English and Scandinavian settlers. New masters, technologies and regulations led to the development of a distinctive dialect and sulture. Yet, in the space of a few decades this cultural edifice has been utterly demolished. This book demonstrates the multi-layered nature of cultural revolution, celebrating the complexity of social advancement. Furthermore, it laments the lost indigenous culture of the Dales. With use of literary passages to portray life in former times, it is a book that evokes history.The use of infra-red photography produces unsettling, timeless illustrations that complement the sense of loss depicted. This guide to the history underlying the individuality of a people and to the landscape history of their homeland is unique to Nidderdale, although similar stories could be told of lost cultures across Britain. This powerful evocation from a leading popular author on landscape history presents an insightful and significant elegy of the past.