New Reading the Landscape Fieldwork in Landscape History

Richard Muir's first Reading the Landscape guide was published in 1981. This new, completely rewritten book reflects the fascination in the relationship between archaeology and the landscape of the English countryside. Muir demonstrates that the activities of peasants and medieval village communities can be traced in the landscape, just as parks show the influence of aristocrats and powerful 18th-century politicians. Woodlands, parks, boundaries, track-ways, deserted villages and churches, farmsteads, villages and defensive earthworks are all described and illustrated in detail with checklists to aid identification. This is a fascinating handbook that will appeal to anyone with an interest in the English countryside and is full of field-tips and information to make life easier for the amateur enthusiast.

Richard Muir is Senior Lecturer in Geography in the University College of Ripon and York St John. He is one of Britain's most widely published and respected landscape historians. Two of his bestselling books on British landscape have won the Yorkshire Arts Literary Prize.