This revealing new book 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 documentation, long locked away in the Inland Revenue's offices, became available to the public in the late 1970s. 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...

Sugar cane has long been one of the world's most important cash crops, and the sugar cane industry can be regarded as one of the world's oldest industries. The industry involves three basic processes: the cultivation of cane, the milling of the cane to extract the juice and the rendering of the juice into crystal sugar. This book is a geography of the sugar cane industry from its origins to 1914. It describes the spread of the industry from India into the Mediterranean during medieval times, across to the Americas in the early years of European colonization, and its subsequent diffusion to...

The rural landscape of England and Wales in the mid-nineteenth century is minutely depicted in the large-scale plans and schedules drawn for the Tithe Commissioners. Among other features shown on the maps are field boundaries and rights of way, whilst the accompanying schedules record the names of owners and occupiers, field names, land use and area. The amount of detailed information they provide, together with their uniformity, place the surveys as the most complete record of the agrarian landscape at any period. This book describes the nature of tithe payments, the Tithe Commutation Act of...

This study uses the experience of Cracow to illuminate general patterns of trade and urban growth in Central and Eastern Europe over several centuries. Dr. Carter describes the regions and places of special significance for Cracow's trade development, and examines the principal trading flows and commodity movements within the overall context of European economic and social change. Trade and Urban Development in Poland will make a major contribution to our understanding of the historical geography of Central and Eastern Europe.

Landscapes of material are also landscapes of meaning: praxis is itself symbolic, and all landscapes are symbolic in practice. Ideology and Landscape in Historical Perspective draws together fifteen historical geographers to examine landscapes as messages to be decoded, and as signs to be deciphered. The range of examples is wide in terms of period, from the medieval to the modern, and of place, embracing the United States, Canada, Palestine, Israel, South Africa, India, Singapore, France and Germany. Each essay addresses a specific problem, but collectively they are principally concerned...

Scotland is viewed from the context of the relationship between geographical knowledge and national identity in this study. The author explores new perspectives on Empire, national characteristics and local geographies of science, and advances a previously unexplored area of geographical inquiry--the historical geography of geographical knowledge. The book offers a broad-ranging approach to the subject, and will be of interest to students as well as imperial historians.

How do peasants, producing mainly for themselves, become capitalist farmers, producing largely for sale? What happens to farm sizes, farming practices, the farm family, farm workers, and the relationships between cultivators and others in the process of this transition? How far does it vary from region to region? Is it inherent in the peasantry, or must it be instigated by landlord, townsfolk or the state? These questions are answered by carefully combining theories with meticulous analysis of the abundant Swedish documentation that has survived.

Bruce Campbell's book is the first single-authored treatment of medieval English agriculture on a national scale. Methodologically innovative, it deals comprehensively with the cultivation carried out by or for lords on their demesne farms, for which the documentation is more detailed and abundant than for any other agricultural group either during the medieval period or later. A context is thereby assured for all future scholarship on the medieval and early agrarian economies. The book also makes a substantive contribution to ongoing historical debates.

Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Amur region had been a virtual terra incognita for the Russian public. However, the region's annexation succeeded in stirring the dreams of the country's most outstanding social and political visionaries, who declared it "civilization's most important step forward." A decade later, this enthrallment and optimism had evaporated. Mark Bassin examines Russia's perceptions of the new territories, placing the Amur enigma in the context of Russian Zeitgeist mid-century, and offers a new perspective on the relationship among Russian nationalism, geographical...

David Meyer traces Hong Kong's vibrant history from the arrival of the foreign trading firms in the 1840s to its celebrated handover to China in 1997. Throughout this period, Hong Kong has been a pivotal meeting place of the Chinese and foreign social networks of capital. The author offers an optimistic view of Hong Kong in the twenty-first century, challenging those who predict its decline under Chinese rule. The story of Hong Kong's success will interest anyone concerned with its past, present and future.