Publishers Weekly
★ 04/15/2024
“Colonialism... affected the remotest corners” of Britain’s landscape, demonstrates historian and curator Fowler (Green Unpleasant Land) in this revelatory travelogue-cum-exposé. Narrating ten walks through the British countryside, Fowler traces how a global web of slavery, indentured servitude, and resource extraction altered the country’s “uplands, shorelines, valleys, lakes, villages and fields.” Touring Berkshire, a county outside of London, she delineates changes brought about by East India Company officials who flocked there in the 18th century and spent their fortunes on gardens and landscaping. On Scotland’s Isle of Jura, she tracks the flow of wealth from Jamaica to the prominent Campbell family, who used money earned in the trafficking of slaves, sugar, and tobacco to invest in Jura’s flax industry and build up the red deer population by way of extensive enclosure. Visiting the Lake District, Fowler reveals that the home where William Wordsworth lived and wrote, with its gorgeous grounds, was underwritten by his brother John’s involvement in the opium trade in Asia. The account transfixes throughout, but especially in Fowler’s description of the backlash she faces for her research—in 2020, her study of how many of the country’s preserved stately manor homes were funded by colonial exploitation became fodder for “culture war”–style attacks. This is a staggering look at some of the less-studied repercussions of colonialism. (June)
From the Publisher
Corinne Fowler provides 10 rural itineraries, but with a twist: she illustrates how much of these beautiful hills and fields owe to Britain’s colonial past...Countryside in no way derides the beauty of these rural routes, but it offers a historical context that is so fascinating that you can read it in your slippers sitting at home.”
—Air Mail
“[A] revelatory travelogue-cum-exposé...The account transfixes throughout...This is a staggering look at some of the less-studied repercussions of colonialism.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A deftly critical, readable contribution to the historiography of empire... Fascinating.”
—Kirkus Reviews
"Grappling with the historical accuracy of revered spaces is not solely a problem in the U.S.... In this well-researched and thoughtful history, Fowler’s evocative descriptions will engage both armchair and in-person travelers.”
—Booklist
“This is real, difficult, essential history delivered in the most eloquent and accessible way. Her case, that rural Britain has been shaped by imperialism, is unanswerable, and she makes her arguments beautifully. An important book.”
—Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland
“This is an essential and fascinating book because it brings to light, through conversations and nature walks, some of the buried connections between Britain’s landscape and historic buildings and its complicated hidden histories. Fowler does not judge or diminish, but enriches and deepens our understanding of this nation.”
—Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other
“A detailed and thoughtful exploration of historical connections that for too long have been obscured. A powerful book that brings the history of the Empire home—literally.”
—David Olusoga, author of Black and British: A Forgotten History
“In this timely, important and wonderfully engaging book, Corinne Fowler does three of my favorite things: walking in beautiful corners of the British Isles, talking with fascinating people, and shining a much-needed light on the colonial and economic histories of the places we think we know. A true act of patriotism, and a delight to read.”
—Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13
“Corinne Fowler emphatically demolishes any claim that Britain was untouched by empire outside of London and the major port cities. She shows how the human and economic impact of slavery and colonialism was felt in myriad ways in places often seen as isolated from global events. Taking her readers from the remote isle of Jura to the rugged landscapes of Wordsworth’s Lake District to the quintessentially English Cotswolds, Fowler vividly illustrates the long reach of empire into every corner of the country.”
—Stephanie Barczewski, author of How the Country House Became English
“Corinne Fowler’s engrossing walks through the English countryside offer a meticulous portrait of the colonial influences on the making of British landscapes and houses. In combining a love of rural walks and villages with the empire that affected them and their workers, she shows that “connected histories” deserve to be remembered and faced rather than erased, and that historical knowledge expands, rather than diminishes, our understanding of place and time.”
—Gretchen Gerzina, author of Black England
“Part poetic travelogue and part deeply researched history, The Countryside is entirely engrossing. Corinne Fowler is an ideal guide for walks through Britain’s rural meadows, forests, and lawns. Her insightful meditations on their hidden histories will stay with you long after you finish the book.”
—Megan Kate Nelson, Pulitzer-Prize finalist and author of The Three-Cornered War and Saving Yellowstone
Kirkus Reviews
2024-03-14
A historian of colonialism examines its effects on the quietest corners of rural Britain.
Colonialism, writes Fowler, reshaped every inch of the British Isles, “from small Cumbrian ports and Scottish islands to rural Norfolk and the depths of Cornwall.” As the subtitle promises, she hits the hiking trails and backroads in the company of scholars, descendants, and activists, turning up evidence of the kind that drives the Tories crazy: Knowing that a country manor was built on the backs of enslaved people can “guilt-trip visitors into feeling ashamed of British history,” as one querulous commentator objected. Of course, countless country manors were funded by the slave trade. For example, the island of Jura, Scotland, was an important entrepôt for a sugar trade controlled by members of the Campbell clan, who intermarried with other sugar barons and, living in splendor around Glasgow, organized resistance to reform: “Unsurprisingly, given the money to be made, Glaswegian businesspeople supported the slavery system.” Slavery meant that Welsh wool went to make plain cloth with which to clothe the enslaved people on sugar plantations in the Caribbean. Providing pasturage for the textile industry meant enclosing the land, which meant wresting the commons from country people and building walls and fences. Fowler’s essays tend to run a touch too long, but she turns in some fascinating tidbits, including the role of William Wordsworth’s colonializing brother in paying William’s way so that he could write at leisure (and, in the bargain, opening the door to the opium trade, whose fruits William’s pals de Quincey and Coleridge so enjoyed); the subtle critique of slavery in Jane Austen’s descriptions of the English rural gentry; and the ongoing effects of a new kind of empire, financial and globalist, on Britain’s byways and hedgerows.
A deftly critical, readable contribution to the historiography of empire.
