Brian Short. Land and Society in Edwardian Britain. (Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 1997. Pp. xvii, 378. $69.95. ISBN 0-521-57035-2.

Abstract

This revealing new addition to Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography presents some of the first researches into a trove of hitherto inaccessible primary source material. A controversial component of Lloyd George's People's Budget of 1909–10 was the 'New Domesday' of landownership and land values. This rich documentation, for long locked away in the Inland Revenue's offices, became available to the public in the late 1970s. For the growing number of scholars of early twentieth century urban and rural Britain, Dr Short offers both a coherent overview and a standard source of reference to this valuable archive. Part I is concerned with the processes of assembling the material and its style of representation; Part II with suggested themes and locality studies. A final chapter places this new material in the context of discourses of state intervention in landed society prior to the Great War.