The Making Of The British Landscape: From the Ice Age to the Present

Description

How much do we really know about the place we call 'home'? In this sweeping, timely book, Nicholas Crane tells the story of Britain. Over the course of 12,000 years of continuous human occupation, the British landscape has been transformed form a European peninsula of glacier and tundra to an island of glittering cities and exquisite countryside. In this geographical journey through time, we discover the ancient relationship between people and place and the deep-rooted tensions between town and countryside. From tsunamis to Roman debacles, from henge to high-rise and hamlet to metropolis, this is a book about change and adaptation. As Britain lurches towards a more sustainable future, it is the story of our age.

Nicholas Crane is a rare combination: he's an expert cartographer and an international explorer with a charisma that brings his personal obsession alive. In 1992-3 he walked alone for 18 months along the entire mountain watershed of Europe, describing this epic adventure in his award-winning book Clear Waters Rising. His next book, Two Degrees West, was an account of his walk down Britain's central meridian, and was published to great acclaim in 1999. Nicholas' most recent book was his biography of the world's first modern, scientific cartographer, the Flemish-born, 16th-century genius Gerard Mercator. MERCATOR: THE MAN WHO MAPPED THE PLANET was published in 2002. He has presented 2 series of Mapman for BBC television.

Ambitious, magnificent - Guardian A geographer's love letter to the British and the land that formed them . . . dramatic, lyrical and even inspiring - Sunday Times This is a magnificent, epic work by a national treasure . . . A tour de force - Daily Mail As panoramic as it is revelatory - Observer