A History of Yorkshire

In the 1980s, Longman launched a Regional History of England series, providing for a pair of linked but independent volumes for each region, one covering the period up to AD 1000 and including prehistory, the other bringing the account up to the twentieth century. One of the most admired of the volumes (and one of the first to appear) was Yorkshire from AD 1000 (1986) by David Hey, a general editor for the whole enterprise. Eventually, however, the planned series languished, particularly on the pre-Conquest side, and was finally abandoned, a serious loss to scholars, students and others in need of up-to-date, manageable surveys of regional history. Professor Hey's volume has long been out of print, and this new version will therefore be widely welcomed. In it the history of Yorkshire is traced in ten chronological chapters, two of them devoted respectively to the area in prehistoric and Roman times and in the Anglo-Saxon and Viking periods. In these new chapters the author himself admits to exploring ground previously unfamiliar to him, but he has succeeded in producing a coherent synthesis of the available material of a kind which few archaeologists seem prepared to write. To the reader these two chapters present an intelligible foundation for what follows. The remaining eight chapters—three on the middle ages, five on the early and later modern periods—draw heavily on the text of Hey's earlier book and may, in the author's words, ‘be considered an extended and up-to-date version’ of what has appeared before. There is certainly new material and a more substantial chapter on the twentieth century, but ‘extended’ is not always the correct word, for in many places the number of examples given has been reduced, facts and figures pruned, tabulations and the very helpful sketch maps excluded. That material sometimes gave the earlier work the air of a textbook (it was none the worse for that), but in its place we now have a more smoothly readable account, with enough examples and brief case-studies to support the author's generalisations. Above all, Hey's approach remains the same, with concentration on several recurrent themes, made clear by the sub-divisions of the chapters: settlement, the countryside, farming, industry, towns, transport and communications, buildings both religious and secular, large and small. Thus the emphasis is to a large extent on the changing features of the Yorkshire landscape, on what could, or can, be seen; and on the developments, chiefly social and economic, which determined that evolution. As in the earlier book there is very little on political and military activity, or on religious history (apart from discussion of the buildings); there are short sections on the poor as well as on housing problems and improvements, but otherwise not much on social life in general. Nevertheless, the approach adopted enables Hey to use his notable skills as a topographer with a keen eye for significant changes in scenery and buildings, while the selections which had to be made give the book a firm coherence which might otherwise be lacking. Hey's work thus provides an admirable synthesis which is more than a second edition, if less than an entirely new book. Furthermore, it is also in many ways a visual history of Yorkshire, for it includes an impressively large number of well-chosen illustrations, mainly in colour, many of them specially photographed (by the publisher himself, as well as the author!), all engaged with the text, informatively captioned, and making a significant contribution to the exposition of the book's main themes. In all, an invaluable, scholarly enterprise, and a splendid achievement; it will be heavily used for many years to come

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Art history · CONQUEST · Genealogy · Period (music · Prehistory · Classics · Cultural History and Identity Formation · Historical and Archaeological Studies · History

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