Nineteenth-century Britain led the world in technological innovation and urbanization, and unprecedented population growth contributed as well to the "rash assault," to quote Wordsworth, on Victorian countrysides. Yet James Winter finds that the British environment was generally spared widespread ecological damage. He focuses on human intervention as it not only destroyed but also preserved the physical environment.
Preface Introduction 1. Innovation and Continuity 2. The Cultural Landscape 3. Lowland Fields 4. Upland Moors 5. Woods and Trees 6. Cutting New Channels 7. Holes 8. Heaps 9. The City in the Country 10. Greening the City 11. The Environment of Leisure 12. The Hungry Ocean Conclusion
James Winter is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of British Columbia and author of London's Teeming Streets, 1830-1914 (1993).
[A] richly detailed, well-researched survey of the impact of industrialization and urbanization on the environment of nineteenth-century Britain. - Patrick Brantlinger, American Historical Review