OUR ISLAND STORIES

The countryside is almost sacred to many Britons There is a depth of feeling about rural places the moors and lochs valleys and mountains cottages and country houses Yet the British countryside so integral to our national identity is rarely seen as having anything to do with British colonialism In Our Island Stories historian Corinne Fowler brings rural life and colonial rule together with transformative results Through ten country walks with varied companions Fowler combines local and global history connecting the Cotswolds to Calcutta Dolgellau to Virginia and Grasmere to Canton Empire transformed rural lives whether in Welsh sheep farms or Cornish copper mines it offered both opportunity and exploitation Fowler shows how the booming profits of overseas colonial activities directly contributed to enclosure land clearances and dispossession These histories usually considered separately continue to link the lives of their descendants now To give an honest account to offer both affection and criticism is a matter of respect we should not knowingly tell half a history This new knowledge of our island stories once gained can only deepen Britons relationship with their beloved landscape