The book is well written, scholarly yet accessible, and draws on a wide-ranging academic literature from archaeology to history, and from the Dark Ages to the dawn of modernity. Mileson and Brookes have produced an admirable book...the authors' passionate interest in their subject matter, and their informed and judicious judgements, are the outstanding features.
Stephen Mileson is a landscape historian who works for the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire. He teaches at Oxford University, and he has published widely on medieval landscapes and social history. His publications include an article in Past and Present on 'Openness and Closure in the Later Medieval Village'. Stephen is editor of the journal Oxoniensia.
Stuart Brookes is a Senior Research Associate at UCL and author of seven monographs and edited volumes, including (with John Baker) Beyond the Burghal Hidage, winner of the 2013 Verbruggen Prize in Military History. Stuart is editor of The Antiquaries Journal and Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine.