While few detailed surveys of fauna or flora exist in England from the period before the
nineteenth century, it is possible to combine the evidence of historical sources (ranging
from game books, diaries, churchwardens’ accounts and even folk songs) and our
wider knowledge of past land use and landscape, with contemporary analyses made by
modern natural scientists, in order to model the situation at various times and places in
the more remote past. This timely volume encompasses both rural and urban
environments from 1650 to the mid-twentieth century, drawing on a wide variety of
social, historical and ecological sources. It examines the impact of social and economic
organisation on the English landscape, biodiversity, the agricultural revolution, landed
estates, the coming of large-scale industry and the growth of towns and suburbs. It also
develops an original perspective on the complexity and ambiguity of man/animal
relationships in this post-medieval period.