Journal of Historical Geography 33 (2007) 695e728www.elsevier.com/locate/jhg

Reviews

Gerry Barnes and Tom Williamson, Hedgerow History: Ecology, History and LandscapeCharacter, Cheshire, Windgather Press, 2006, viii þ 152 pages, £18.99 paperback.

‘This is a book about hedges’, the opening sentence of Hedgerow History: Ecology, History andLandscape Character unpretentiously declares e setting a refreshingly straightforward tone whichis carried throughout the text. Given the rather all-encompassing title of Hedgerow Historyreaders may, as I was on receiving the book, be surprised that the text covers just 152 pages.This is arguably testament to the accurate, succinct, style of the authors rather than any superfi-ciality or lack of detail. Indeed, weaved within the six chapters and abundant illustrations (69 intotal) is an evident, infectious enthusiasm on the part of the authors for their subject. This enthu-siasm is illustrated most clearly as the authors argue that ‘There is something peculiarly seductiveabout the idea that the everyday features all around us can be a direct link with the deep past, andin the concept that history and ecology can combine to give e in a particular landscape feature ea distinct sense of place’ (p. 41).

The book’s opening chapter provides an historical overview of hedgerows and the context forthe more specific material dealt with in later chapters. The chapter charts the ‘long and complexhistory of hedges in England’ (p. 23) by looking at the key moments in the development and[ab]use of hedgerows and providing some critical commentary to many of the received wisdomsof hedgerow history. Particularly interesting in this regard are the sections that offer a critical dis-cussion of the process of enclosure which are, it is suggested, central to understanding the originand character of hedgerows. Chapter two presents readers with the conceptual and methodolog-ical underpinnings of the study of hedgerow form and development. The pioneering work ofHooper on the theories and techniques of ‘hedge dating’ is introduced and presented alongsidethe subsequent applications and critiques of his work. The review presented of this diverse andvoluminous literature illustrates the divergent stakeholders who have studied hedgerows e withthe debates and exchanges taking place between academic and non-academic groups illustrativeof the wide range of interests that converge on this feature(s) of the landscape. Barnes and Wil-liams offer a critique of these literatures and despite the inherent weaknesses of many of the stud-ies they cite, their discussion remains sympathetic by objectively providing some context to thesestudies and appreciating their divergent goals and motivations.

Chapters three to five turn to the specific case of Norfolk. Chapter three discusses the complexnatural and historical context of Norfolk’s hedges in some detail. In so doing the chapter bringsforward the key issue of the availability of sources for reconstructing this history. Readers are re-minded of the sporadic, spatially and temporally variable, source material that can be drawn uponin reconstructing this history and how any such account remains only as complete as the sources

696 Reviews / Journal of Historical Geography 33 (2007) 695e728

available and more importantly how these sources are used and interpreted. Chapter four intro-duces the empirical material from which the majority of the book draws and reveals the depth andextent of the case study. Over an eight-year period a database of some 2800 hedges (consisting ofover 15,000 separate samples), from 120 parishes and spread across the varying soil types andlandscape regions of the county, was developed. The data are used in discussion of the limitationsof the Hopper hypothesis and evidence given of how multi-species planting, variations in seed sup-ply, as well as variations in colonisation rates across different soils problematise the often assumedlinear correlation between hedge age and composition.

Having used their case study data to open up this critique chapter five focuses more specificallyon the particular hedgerow histories of the different soil regions and landscape regions of Norfolk.This well-illustrated chapter is arguably the heart of the book. In this section the authors make thewelcome diversion off a singular focus on hedgerow ecology to a wider discussion of the culturalecology of the hedges in Norfolk. Drawing on a range of archival and published sources the au-thors attempt to offer some wider context of the historical management and use of these hedges.This discussion is continued into the opening section of the concluding chapter, which providesa discussion of the deliberate, multi-species planting within the county. It is concluded in the chap-ter that the Hooper hypothesis, and any refinement of it, could never work except in ‘terms sobroad as to be meaningless’, but it is suggested that the study of hedgerows in new ways andfor different purposes is currently gaining some impetus. The use of computer mapping in con-junction with conservation concerns relating to their important ecological, heritage, and land-scape value mean that hedges are now, more than ever, the focus of attention for anincreasingly wide range of stakeholders.

Those historical geographers with an eye for the regional variation of hedgerow form and his-tory will perhaps be disappointed by the text’s narrow focus on the Norfolk case study. The au-thors stress in the introduction that the book is more than just a study of Norfolk, seeing this asa ‘case study from which more general lessons about the history of hedges can be learnt’ (p. 1).Despite this caveat, and the attempt to make broader connections in the opening and closingchapters, the core of the book revolves around detailed description, itself of much interest, ofthe Norfolk example. However, this should not detract from the many merits of this well-writtenand well-illustrated text. The detailed scholarship within this book should make it a welcome ad-dition to the shelves of academic historians, landscape archaeologists and historical geographers,while the lucid narrative within which the history of hedgerows is told will prove popular toa more general readership interested in the history of the countryside.

Mark RileyUniversity of Portsmouth, UK

10.1016/j.jhg.2007.03.001

Jeremy Black, Altered States: America Since the Sixties, London, Reaktion Books, 2006, 240pages, £14.95 paperback.

Old and assiduous newspaper readers with good memories will find few surprises in this book,which reads very much like a digest of a large and well-organized clippings file. Readers who