A volume dealing with the regional and local history of South East England, this covers the landcape and society of the modern counties of Surrey, Kent, East and West Sussex and Greater London, south of the Thames from late Anglo-Saxon times to the present. The authors have tried to show the diversity that can be found within the region as well as common characteristics which illustrate the local peculiarities of the area. The works in the series offer a synthesis of both historical and archaeological work in local areas. Each region is covered in two linked but independent volumes, the first covering the period up to AD 1000 and necessarily relying on archaeological data, and the second bringing the story up to modern times. It aims to portray life as it was experienced by the majority of people of South Britain or England as it was to become. The authors look at the major historical events which have an impact on the reagion - wars, plagues, technological changes and socio-cultural trends amongst them - but they also stress the underlying continuity of rural and urban life.

The prehistory and early history of Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire, Avon, and the city of Bristol.

This series, fully illustrated with maps and half-tones, is written for general readers as well as the student. In illuminating the anonymous lives of our predecessors it will, when complete, substantially enrich our understanding of the many histories which together make up the history of England. This authoritative volume surveys the modern history of the counties of Lancashire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Cheshire. In 1540 this was a backward area, poor, underpopulated and conservative. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth century the spread of the first cottage industries to the mills and the mines transformed the region into one of the engines of Britain's nineteenth-century greatness. The causes, the costs and the consequences of that transformation are vividly portrayed in this very readable text. Offers a succinct account and analysis of the first region to experience the developed factory system. Discusses the rise, dominance and decline of the region which has parallels across the country and the world. Provides essential background text for the students of local history. Assumes no previous knowledge of the region.

Describes the state's prehistory and archaeological discoveries

A chronological summary of major stages in Southeastern United States' development, this unique textbook overviews the region's archaeology from 20,000 years ago to World War I. Early chapters review the history and development of archaeology as a discipline. The following chapters, organized in chronological order, highlight the archaeological characteristics of each featured period. The book's final chapters discuss new directions in Southeastern archaeology, including trends in teaching, research, the business of archaeology, and the public's growing interest. This versatile text perfectly suits undergraduates or anyone requiring a hands-on guide for self-exploration of the fascinating region. This is the first-of-its kind book to summarize Southeastern archaeology. It includes both prehistoric and historic archaeology. Its easy-to-read format is filled with valuable research information. Each chapter is chronologically organized and fully referenced. It has broad audience appeal.

From prehistory to the present day, our landscape has been transformed by successive periods of human activity, triggered by the rise and fall of populations and their need to be fed, housed, and employed. These changes have built up layers of evidence which offer historians exciting insightsinto land use through the centuries and how rural communities of the past lived their lives. In this ground-breaking study - published in hardback as The English Rural Landscape and now available in paperback - Joan Thirsk and her team of distinguished contributors, many of whom live in the places they describe, invite us to explore the historical richness of the English landscape. Eachchapter synthesizes the latest thinking and provides fresh perspectives on its subject. It is the first book since W. G. Hoskins' definitive study The Making of the English Landscape, published nearly 50 years ago, to do so. The first ten chapters describe the characteristic features of the main landscape types, including fenland, downland, woodland, marshland, and moorland. However geographically scattered areas of a particular landscape type are, they have often been moulded by successive generations in ways that haveproduced strong physical similarities. The second part of the book is made up of five cameo features, each exploring an individual place in detail: the people and the distinctive histories that shaped them. These include the Land Settlement experimental village of Fen Drayton, set up during the Great Depression in the 1930s, and surveysof the very different settlements of Hook Norton in North Oxfordshire and Staintondale in North Yorkshire. Rural England: A History of the Landscape shows us how much of the rural past is still visible if we choose to dig for it. It illustrates how we might go about exploring it for ourselves. It is the definitive work on the history of the English landscape for all would-be landscape and local historydetectives, professional and amateur alike.

The Records of Early English Drama (REED) series aims to establish the context for the great drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries by examining the historical manuscripts that provide external evidence of drama, secular music, and other communal entertainment and ceremony from the Middle Ages until Puritan legislation closed the London theatres in 1642. REED's sixteenth collection, Kent: Diocese of Canterbury contains the evidence of dramatic, musical, and ceremonial activity in the city of Canterbury and in the towns and parishes of the diocese of Canterbury, taken from the borough records, parish records, civil and ecclesiastical court records, and from personal papers such as wills, diaries, and letters. This collection includes over 4,000 payments to travelling players from the earliest recorded payment in 1272, when the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, paid for entertainment on the feast day of St Thomas Becket, to the last recorded payment in 1641 in Puritan Canterbury for players not to play. It also features the Canterbury marching watch with pageants, including the pageant of St Thomas Becket; the New Romney passion play; numerous visits of nobility and royalty to Faversham, Canterbury, and Dover, being the main stops along Watling Street between London and the Continent; the activities of waits, drummers, and other civic musicians in the ancient towns and cities of Kent; and extensive evidence from court cases, borough ordinances, and chamberlains' payments of the suppression of dramatic activity during the Puritan years of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As with all the REED volumes, Kent Diocese of Canterbury is transcribed from the original sources, edited, and presented with explanatory notes, translations, and a general introduction. The resulting volume forms the largest collections thus far in the REED series.