| Book Review | Environmental History, 11.3

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| Book Review | Environmental History, 11.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Forests and Chases of England and Wales c. 1500 − c.1850: Towards a Survey and Analysis. Edited by John Langdon and Graham Jones. Oxford: St John's College Research Centre, 2005. xviii + 118pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, bibliography, index. £25 paperback.

In 2005 St. John's College, Oxford, celebrated its 450th anniversary. At the time the college was founded the forests and chases in England and Wales comprised freely accessed common wasteland and woodland which, for the next three centuries, played many pivotal roles in the lives of different segments of the population. For example, they were important in the lives of royalty and aristocrats for recreational activities, notably hunting; for the common classes (peasantry) in the provision of livelihoods through grazing, hunting, and fuel acquisition; and in general terms as social foci subject to management and political control and influence. A holistic understanding of their geography in space and over the subsequent 350 years, until the industrialization process asserted the dominance of the urban over the rural, can at best be described as piecemeal. This is partly because there have been and continue to be many interested parties: ecologists, archaeologists, historians, geographers, sociologists, economists and partly because there has been no systematic attempt to draw all these parties together within a coordinated research program.

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