Christopher Dyer - Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages

Despite being intended as a university text book this is a interesting and readable study of the living conditions of people in the English Middle Ages circa 1200 to 1520. What shines through first and foremost are the differences due to what Dyer calls the "enormous disparities between rich and poor". These, he emphasises, "were not an incidental by-product of economic activity but an inherent feature of society". Considering the ruling class, he writes:

The important characteristic of the aristocracy in any case was not the size of the income but the means by which it was obtained, that is by lordship. The bulk of their regular revenues came from land, most often rents and other payments enforced through rights of jurisdiction that were exercised in manorial courts.

At the other end of the economic (and exploitative) scale were the peasantry. Dyer takes the reader through the plethora of different types of peasants - from the free to the serfs - and the various types of holding and labour they had to do. While acknowledging that the period covered saw vast changes in types of landowning, Dyer notes that their communities were complex, but the peasantry did form a class. He writes:

We usually envisage the peasantry in three layers, of rich, middling and poor, by reference to the amount of land held... All of them, however, were involved in agricultural production, and had a stake in the common fields of their village. All belonged to village communities which in limited ways governed themselves. All paid rents or worked services, and were subject to the jurisdiction of a lord. Their involvement in acts of rebellion and resistance suggests a recognition of a common interest in the removal of restrictions and irksome dues. For these reasons the peasantry can be regarded as a social class.

As I said, class plays a key role in the book. One interesting nugget among many in Dyer's work is the relatively small numerical size of the upper class in the Middle Ages. He suggests that in England it amounted to a total of 50,000 people, about two percent of the population. This includes "20,000 monks, nuns and beneficed clergy" who lived of land revenues. No wonder they were so terrified of revolt from below. But the aristocracy in particular did not have it easy. We get a real sense of them struggling to manage their livestyles in the face of economic crisis and change - including events like the Black Death and plague. Dyer describes them as a "remarkably resilient and flexible class" prepared to change and adapt to maintain their position. They were also in constant change as different families lost personal or lands.

The aristocracy were judged by different standards today. Dyer holds an interesting discussion about a 14th century poem, Winner and Waster which shows the different aristocratic behaviours with wealth as having different roles - demonstrating wealth and power through spending, as well as holding society together through their ability to display restraint.

Returning to the other end of the scale, Dyer shows the difficulties in estimating the standard of living of the peasantry as their wealth was not recorded in estate accounts. In addition, he highlights how the changing roles of the peasantry within their own lives, makes it difficult to pin down exactly how people lived.

"There was no medieval proletariat" he explains, but "a high proportion of the population worked for others at some stage of their lives, and employers were numerous, including not just the wealthy gentry, clergy and yeomen, but also a wide range of craftsmen and peasants... As the unit of production was the peasant holding or the craftsman's workshop, few employees worked in a group large than two or three."

It was the slow changes in the later part of the period that began to upset the old order. Contrary to common belief (repeated frequently through the Covid-19 pandemic) the Black Death didn't simply lead to a quick rise in wages. "In fact the rise in wages was a first modest, and the striking improvement often came in the last quarter of the 14th century". Whatever the reasons, the employers felt a "deep sense of shock at the 'unnatural; demands of their servants". The "new deal for wage-earners" arose from a complex combination of different factors, but it did open up a new era of social exploitation. Nonetheless, Dyer emphasises that most people were underemployed through the period. This helps explain the peasant rebellions that took place after the Black Death, but also aspects of more personalised resistance, such as a constant changing of jobs for those who were able to. Perhaps its this, in the aftermath of the Black Death, that made the biggest contribution to ending serfdom and feudalism. 

Dyer concludes his book by noting that in the Middle Ages wealth did not mean happiness. A well off peasant with ample food and work, might be unhappy at their legal position, while a monk who had taken a vow of poverty and begged for his living might be very spiritually happy. Nonetheless the life of the majority of the population was not one of ease - but of restriction, exploitation and oppression - something that highlights once again that the Middle Ages were not a time of stagnation - but one of dynamic economic and political change. 

Christopher Dyer's book is an excellent introduction to the period - which combines well an academic study with a real feeling for the lives of people from different classes. Highly recommended as an introduction to the period.

Related Reviews

Dyer - Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1520
Bolton - The Medieval English Economy 1150 - 1500

Diane Cook - The New Wilderness

*** Warning Spoilers ***

In some not so distant future, urban areas are over-crowded, polluted, violent and poor. The countryside has all but disappeared, rural areas being subsumed by ever expanding concrete. With one exception - the New Wilderness. Guarded by rangers, carefully monitored by drone and home to a small ragged band of randomly selected humans who are encouraged - forced even - to lead a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. The band wanders around gradually losing the equipment they brought with them, from station to station where they receive the occasional piece of post from the outside world and meet rangers who give them instructions, and fines for transgressing the rules of the Wilderness.

Its a compelling, if unbelievable scenario. Diane Cook's cast of misfits have to cope with a variety of problems - some environmental, but most social - and not all of them survive. Cook is clearly influenced by William Golding's Lord of the Flies, and this book combines elements of that story with more contemporary environmental disaster novels.

The problem is that the setup is interesting. But it falls apart because it is riddled with inconsistency and plot holes. For instance, there's no rational reason behind the "experiment". In fact the elements of behaviour by the group that would be of interest to any scientists studying them are actively discouraged by the rangers, under threat of violence. The author hopes to create an air of mystery but not explaining anything, but in reality it leaves the reader befuddled. Why would a state go to such lengths to create an elaborate version of hunter-gatherers, but do so little to make it work? In addition, the exceptions make no sense at all. Why would those under the experimental microscope continue to receive mail, and mail that includes baked goods, pieces of equipment and (in one case) a university's departmental minutes. It doesn't even appear to be an elaborate Survivor reality TV show.

But it's the inconsistencies that get the reader. Getting to the New Wilderness is so difficult that others make their way there, seemingly using underground networks to avoid the authorities. Yet one main character leaves the group, returns to her home (which despite references to resource shortages seems to be still available) and then comes back a few months later. The characters lose all track of time (one of the heroines doesn't know her age) but the band seems to have a good understanding of the seasons, moon and stars. The rules don't make sense. The nomads have to hide sweets, yet they get post that includes cake (how does it survive?). They are given illogical and inconsistent instructions by the rangers, who always hate them, but there's no explanation why. They are joined by a new group of ill-equipped, naïve volunteers who everyone expects to die, but none of them do. This new group of people have apparently been following news about the original nomads but haven't learnt any lessons - turning up in sandals and summer dresses with no equipment. 

The central mother-daughter (Bea/Agnes) story barely works - not least because Bea behaves so irrationally. At one point I thought I understood the reason Bea randomly threw herself at the unpleasant and idiotic Carl was because she had concocted a clever power game with her beloved husband. In truth it seems the author wanted to, Lord of the Flies style, suggest that a powerful man is sexually attractive simply because of his power. The central message seems to be that people reduced to nothing will get on with each other only because they have to, but really would prefer to be alone. 

This is a bad novel. It is illogical, irrational, unwieldy and unpleasant. Its characters behave irrationally and stupidly. How it got nominated for the Booker Prize I don't know. I'd recommend you avoid it.

Related Reviews

St. John Mandel - Station Eleven
Montag - After the Flood
Jameson - The Last
Aldiss - Greybeard
Solomon - An Unkindness of Ghosts
Robinson - Aurora

Robert Seethaler - The Tobacconist

The first novel I read by Robert Seethaler was the whimsical and beautiful A Whole Life. In some ways The Tobacconist is a very different book, but like the previous work it deals with those complete experiences that serve to make a up a life. 

It's 1937. Franz lives an idyllic, lazy life on the shores of a beautiful Austria lake. Insulated from the outside world by his home town's isolation and his youth, Franz suddenly finds himself thrown into a very different world as his mother's partner dies and they are short of money. Franz is sent to a friend of his mothers, the eponymous tobacconist who owns a booth in central Vienna. The elderly, one-legged, gruff Otto turns Franz into an experienced cigar salesman. At the same time, the naïve Franz begins to learn about the reality of the wider world as Hitler enters Austria. 

The theme of the innocent, bewildered outsider entering the dark and gloom of the real world is not new. Seethaler handles it well, probably more so for his Austrian readers who might know more about the reality of Nazi rule in Vienna. For Franz though the graffiti, Gestapo and anti-Jewish boycott's are confusing - especially as he is himself distracted through falling in love for the first time. In a not to subtle nod to Freudianism itself, Seethaler links Franz's growing awareness of love and sex, with his developing understanding of the wider political world, through the character of Sigmund Freud himself. Franz repeatedly pigeon holes Freud as he struggles to understand his emotions of love and betrayal at the hands of a young woman. There's even a phallic cigar or two to ram the point home. 

Otto's gruff exterior belays a deeper kindness - having lost his leg in the trenches of World War One, he's not prepared to forgo his own ideals. Serving Jews at the Tobacconist however draws the attention of local fascists and eventually the Gestapo arrive. As Freud is also forced from Vienna, Franz grows up remarkably fast and, inevitably, draws attention to himself. Franz's letters home to his mother, who he imagines remains in the bucolic countryside, actually show him that that world is also becoming corrupted. There seems to be no escape anymore.

It's a fine novel - compelling, intense and painful - and well worth reading, even if it didn't quite live up to Seethaler's earlier classic in this reader's mind.

Related Reviews

Seethaler - A Whole Life

John Hultgren - Border Walls Gone Green: Nature & Anti-Immigrant Politics in America

The growing climate crisis places a new importance on discussions around migration, refugees and immigration. The environmental movement has come late to these questions. But in recent years as the movement has begun developing an appreciation of the role of colonialism, imperialism and racism in the the environmental crisis, there has been growing awareness around issues about racism, refugees and migration. But as John Hultgren's important book shows, there are right-wing and racist approaches to these issues that link them to a different approach to nature. He also argues that particularly in the United States (though not limited to it) the dominant approach to nature opens up activists to a racist agendas. He writes:

This shortcoming is reflective of a broader theoretical lacuna in environmental thought: greens lack an adequate understand of the political terrain on which struggles over nature intersect with the norms, practices and institutions of sovereignty. As nature is increasingly being deployed in projects of boundary drawing.. a failure to grapple with this emerging form of territorialisation disables effective responses to 'environmental restrictionism' and opens up space for anti-immigrant logics to subtly influence well-intentioned greens.

To emphasise Hultgren's point:

Nature is not merely captured to advance exclusionary social agendas; it is commitments to certain conceptions of nature that give rise to such agendas. [Hultgren's emphasis].

Hultgren explores three successive approaches that have coloured understanding of nature - Malthusianism, romanticism and Darwinism. He concludes:

From the late 1800s to the late 1930s an articulation between romantic and Darwinian natures intersected with a hegemonic, racial nationalism [in the US]  through a shared commitment to natural and national purity. By contrast, from the early 1940s to the early 2000s, the overt racial essentialisations present in the earlier wave of restrictionism were subsumed by a dominant neo-Malthusian nature that cut across an increasingly complex social terrain, enabling restrictionists to reinforce American sovereignty through the exclusion of immigrants, but provoking strong opposition in the process.

In contemporary discourse around climate change it is the question of the nation-state that dominates. The UN's COP process begins and ends with the idea that nations are responsible for certain amounts of emissions, and per-capita or national figures are quoted with abandon. The problem with this is, as Hultgren points out, is that this turns "socially constructed borders into natural facts" and excludes "ecosystemic or transnational" approaches. These approaches then inform wider understandings. Nature is associated with social conceptions like carrying capacity, or purity.

This can lead into an approach that blames immigrants for destruction of natural systems - because of racist beliefs about their behaviour or culture; or sees immigrants as only wanting to adapt to particular social norms which carry an associated environmental "foot print". Hence US anti-immigrant rhetoric sometimes takes the alleged per-capita emissions of an American and contrasts it with that of (say) an average Mexican. The implicit argument being that more immigrants mean more destruction. Finally immigrants are often portrayed by the right as being uncaring about the environment, in supposed contrast to white people. 

We should not fall into the trap of believing these are just modern arguments though. Hultgren emphasises how historical approaches to nature coloured particular arguments around immigration. Eg the idea that humans are inherently destructive, or fears of unrestricted population growth leading to automatic resource shortages.

These historical sections are fascinating and lay the ground for the later chapters that look at contemporary right-wing ideas around nature/immigration in the US. But it is the contemporary sections that are likely to be the most useful to left-wing and environmental activists today. Hultgren explains that

social nativists depend on a variety of epistemological strategies that deploy nature as a marker of order supporting white political supremacy; however they are quite ambivalent in their dealings with nature as an intrinsically valuable entity.

He continues by pointing out that there is no reason that "social nativists" could not be green (in fact he goes on to show some anti-migration activists that definitely are). But because environmentalism is associated with "progressive, Democratic politics" there isn't likely to be a major shift towards this sort of politics from the right of the political spectrum. However he continues that there are sections of the right in the US that consciously have attempted to use debates around environmentalists to further their agenda. Writing about one activist, Hultgren says "he is an environmentalist wedded to a specific construction of nature that is itself embedded in exclusionary notions of nationalism, race and culture. These commitments to an nationalised and racialised nature have led him into activism aimed at securing American sovereignty from the supposed threat posed by immigration".

One thing that I took from Hultgren's book is that left activists need to constantly be aware of how debates around the environment and population can be used, and articulated by the right. But, more importantly, what Hultgren concludes is that environmentalism cannot succeed in defeating right-wing anti-immigrant (and I would extend this to over-population arguments) unless it adopts a critical approach that sees nature as intimately connected to social questions like racism, class, gender, colonialism and capitalism.

John Hultgren's book is an illuminating read for all activists today. His conclusion is worth quoting by way of encouraging others to read this excellent book:

The "wes" of an environmentalism of migration "are an evolving," but the immediate challenge is to confront the power of a dominant mode of sovereignty that operates through militarised neoliberalism, a form of power that depends on the continued construction of border walls. Resistance, then, requires a global alliance geared toward tearing down border walls of all sorts - including the green variety.

It isn't enough for environmentalists to be anti-racist, pro-migrant or pro-refugee, we must also be against the dominant approaches to the environment that see the nation state, neo-liberal concepts like natural capital and blaming individuals as the answer. We need an anti-capitalist, anti-racist, pro-migrant environmentalism. John Hultgren's book offers much to those trying to get there.

Readers interested in the question of climate change and refugees/migrants should read this article by Camilla Royle on Migration in an era of Climate Catastrophe.

Related Reviews

Angus & Butler - Too Many People? Population, Immigration & the Environmental Crisis
Pearce - PeopleQuake, Mass Migration, Ageing Nations and the Coming Population Crash

Seb Falk - The Light Ages: A Medieval Journey of Discovery

When I learnt history at school we understood the "Dark Ages" as a period when little happened. The Romans had left England and there was an essential collapse into chaos and barbarism. Everything, from the towns and the economy, to education and agriculture stagnated at best or even went backwards. Today these views are a lot less common, but you still find it expressed in TV series, news reports or popular history books.

So it is wonderful that Seb Falk has written this new history of the science of the "Dark Ages" and quite rightly, relabelled them the Light Ages. Falk tells the story by telling the story of the monk John Westwyk who spent much of his life at a monastery in St Albans. Little is known about Westwyk's life, but Falk draws out the little we know. However the key material centres on the writing that Westwyk did, particularly his work in describing and transcribing texts that discuss how to use key astronomical instruments of the time - particularly the astrolabe. Westwyk also designed, though never built, a complex instrument called an equatorie.

In telling this story Falk draws out the deep scientific knowledge of the times. One important aspect to this is Falk's discussions of astrology. Today there is a tendency to dismiss astrology as being unscientific - that is absolutely correct. But in the Middle Ages astrology was a key part of much wider knowledge. The positions of stars, planets and the sun and moon, were considered a key part of medicine, agricultural knowledge, navigation and weather prediction. So Falk explores the contemporary knowledge of the how the planets, sun, moon and stars moved and how to predict and time events. It is remarkable how detailed this knowledge was and time and again I was surprised by the expertise of the monks who wrote and taught this material. As Falk jokes about his own book - if the reader finds some of the trigonometry difficult in the book, then they'll realise that medieval people were not stupid.

Another aspect to this is the exchange of ideas. Firstly monks like Westwyk drew heavily on the work of scientists from across the world - in particular figures like Aristotle and Ptolemy - as well as writers from Asia and the Middle East. Readers might be surprised at the extent to which Christian monks respected the work of Muslim and Jewish scholars. There's a popular idea that monks in the Middle Ages simply copied verbatim, knowledge from the past. But as Falk shows these copies were updated, annotated and corrected by those who copied. 

When Westwyk copied one scientific document the Albion treatise,

he added two pages of his own commentary about the relationship between Richard's [original author] compendious invention and some of the older instruments it incorporated. The first of the was the saphea of Arzachel... [who] worked in Muslim Al-Andalus in the late eleventh century, first in Toledeo and later... in Cordoba. He was a prolific astronomer, compiling user-friendly tables and developing new theories to account for long term changes in the motions of the Sun and stars.

Copies of books were circulated, borrowed and shared - though the work required skill, time and money. There was also extensive travel. John Westwyk began at St Albans, he travelled to Northumberland for several years, joined the Bishops crusade and likely also attended university. The idea that "science" or "knowledge" in these times was stagnant or limited to a small number of people is simply false.

That said, Falk makes clear that medieval science was not science as we know it. In fact the role of science and knowledge, as well as instruments like the astrolabe, was also about illuminating society and the positions of people within it. As he explains:

The astrolabe was a key to understanding - understanding both God and yourself. If Nature was a book which, like Scripture, contained clues to the divine plan, and if the world sphere, as Sacrobosco said, was a machine, then in the intricate movements of a man-made celestial machine you could find clues to the craftsmanship in Creation - a windows in to the mind of God. Moreover, studying the astrolabe could help to find your place in the world, not merely geographically, but existentially too... Medieval science... was artificially separated from Subjects that dealt with moral questions. Degrees of altitude and social status shaded subtly into one another.

Chaucer's treatise on the astrolabe was "not even just a general astronomy textbook. It was part of an all-round education". In this vein, the design of the Albion instrument was intended to "direct the minds of many people to higher things".

In trying to summarise the key points of Falk's book here I have neglected much fascinating detail. There is an amazing section on the design and manufacture of medieval instruments, as well as a step by step guide to using an astrolabe - though this is a little difficult to follow. Falk spends a great deal of time explaining precisely what the monks were trying to understand about the universe, and how this information was passed on - including the spectacular mechanical clock that was built at St Albans. 

Seb Falk's book is fascinating and illuminating. It is also a beautiful work. Lavishly illustrated with colour plates and many diagrams that clarify the text and the mathematics, this book should be on the shelf of anyone who is interested in the history of science and the middle ages. I highly recommend it.

Related Reviews

Wickham - Medieval Europe
Gimpel - The Medieval Machine
Bolton - The Medieval English Economy: 1150-1500
Bloch - Feudal Society
Miller - Empire of the Stars
Panek - Seeing and Believing
Holmes - The Age of Wonder
Hewitt - Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey

Dan Simmons - The Rise of Endymion

The fourth and final volume of Simmon's Hyperion Cantos brings together multiple narrative threads from the previous book and the two earlier ones. If volume three was mostly a chase, as Aenea and Raoul fled the galactic Catholic Church, this volume tells the story of Aenea's life as she spreads a message of religious radicalism. Travelling from planet to planet she begins to convert people to a new way of thinking that challenges the power of the Church and offers new ways of understanding the universe and humanities place within it. Raoul takes a different route and, through a time debt incurred by long distance space travel, meets up with Aenea when she has grown up. They become lovers.

Raoul struggles to understand his role, Aenea and her life. Jealous, confused and, on occasion stupid, he serves once again as a substitute for the reader. We learn about Aenea and her life as Raoul does, though on occasion I wanted to slap him and tell him to grow up! As Raoul searches his soul for his feelings for Aenea, galactic wide forces search for her and the Catholic Church launches a Crusade against the Ousters, whom they blame for humanity's condition. Behind the scenes (or perhaps under the fabric of the universe) other intelligent forces try to guide and shape events in their own interests. Rebellion explodes on planet after planet, in part inspired by Aenea's teachings but also because of the oppressive reality of Church rule. 

Father de Soya breaks from the Church after having had to kill too many children in the name of the Church and begins to learn the reality of what the Church is doing and why. His alliance with Aenea moves them into final confrontation with the Church - and finally (finally!) Raoul begins to comprehend what is taking place - though it remains unclear why he is kept in the dark so much. The ending of the book, brings together strands from all four volumes in a brilliant way - forgotten events that weren't explained in the first couple of books suddenly take on importance, or at least are tied off and explained. But there are also some brilliant examples of Simmon's talent for description - the Dyson sphere of trees that suffers a massive attack from the Church's space-armada being one example.

The final volume is huge - over 800 pages - even for a series that has already had thousands of pages. But this isn't just because Simmons is tying up lose ends and bringing the story to a satisfying climax. Unfortunately it is also because he is prone to extra long descriptions and philosophical musings and gets a little carried away here - some of these feel much more clunky than the previous books and in my opinion weakened this book. Nonetheless its a satisfying finale that brings the whole sequence to a excellent close. And we finally understand what the Shrike is.

Related Reads

Simmons - Hyperion
Simmons - The Fall of Hyperion
Simmons - Endymion

Dan Simmons - Endymion

Endymion is the third part of Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos. While the second two books form an independent story, readers would be well advised to read the first two books which set the scene for the final half of the story. But readers should also check them out first because they are a brilliant and very well told story. 

Endymion itself is set several hundred years after the events of The Fall of Hyperion. It begins with Raoul Endymion in prison facing a death sentence "for the second time". Trapped in a Schrodinger's box execution, awaiting the emission of a random radioactive particle that will trigger poison gas, he tells his story and how it is tied up with the daughter of two of the first books' main characters Aenea.

Nearly three hundred years before the start of this story Aenea entered the time-tombs on Hyperion and is set to leave them. Raoul, escaping from his first death sentence through the intervention of the aged poet Martin Silenus (one of the few characters to make it into the second half of the Cantos), learns that he has to rescue Aenea from the clutches of a now galactic wide, resurrected, Catholic Church. 

The rescue leads to a novel length chase, as Raoul and the child Aenea travel along the River Thethys, visiting world after world, hunted by Father de Soya for the Church. Alongside Soya are several powerful bionic AIs that are also hunting Aenea and various other forces that are vying for Galactic position.

In the first book of the Cantos, Hyperion, part of the brilliance was the different stories told by the participants in a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs. Brilliantly Simmons eschewed this format for the second book, taking the story and the style to new places. In volume three the chase from planet to planet allows Simmons to elaborate about the universe he has created, exploring the role of the Church, as well as the people who live under (or resist) its rule. Simmons is at his best when he tells these background stories - sometimes they serve to tell us about the universe of the books, or develop the key characters. At other times they are whimsical explorations of alien life and culture. The frozen world of Sol Draconi is one example - here the hunter-gatherer natives scratch a bare living, threatened by monstrous local animals that kills them regularly. Trying to find a route off the planet Raoul and Aenea encounter a philosophical, blind priest. It's a touching break in a seemingly endless chase.

Much of the background detail on these planets turns out to be highly relevant, as it seems that the Church isn't the only galactic force trying to shape the future of humanity. The novel ends with Aenea settling down on Old Earth (albeit an Earth transported to the Large Magellanic Cloud and managed by AIs) to develop her own understanding. Raoul explores old Earth, with adventures he refers to only tantalizing, realising he needs to finish writing before radioactive decay forces his wave-function into a particular collapsed state. Raoul, it should be said, spends much of both books confused about his role and purpose, simultaneously a hero of the story and a substitute for the reader who will have to read right to the end of volume four to finally understand what's happening.

Related Reviews 

Simmons - Hyperion
Simmons - The Fall of Hyperion
Simmons - The Rise of Endymion

John Lewis-Stempel - Still Water: The Deep Life of the Pond

There has been an enormous boom in nature writing in the last few years. Visits to mainstream bookshops are now often dominated by shelves groaning under the weight of books on nature, or aspects of nature. No doubt this is in part to do with the environmental crisis which has raised nature back into our gaze again. But it is also a response to the growing alienation of late capitalism. The longer trends of a crisis ridden society fuelling a need for escapism - and what better place to escape to than the natural world. John Lewis-Stempel is one author who has been a key part of this. A farmer as well as a popular historian, he has written several books that have taken key aspects of the (mainly) English landscape and explored them in various ways. 

Still Water is his latest and looks at the life and history of the pond. Ponds play an important role in the landscape. Today they are celebrated less for watering of animals or cart wheels and more for their role in preserving wildlife. Ponds require maintenance - human intervention. Those duck ponds on village commons, or in farmers' field need dredging, clearing and protection. They are also complex eco-systems of mammals, birds, amphibians, fish, insects and plants. A dialectical system of life that is, tragically, diminishing as ponds are lost to development or no longer fit agricultural requirements.

Lewis-Stempel tells us this, but unfortunately he does so in a way that practically removes the pond from wider historical and natural dynamics. We never really get a sense of the ecological systems and their links to wider processes. Instead we see the pond, and its teeming life, merely through the eyes of the observer. It feels inadequate, as though there are chunks of story missing. Lewis-Stempel tells us about individual creatures and plants, but it feels remarkably superficial. They are isolated from wider networks. The author celebrates their lives, their uniqueness but it isn't ecology - its a ramble through the things that Lewis-Stempel wants to tell us about. Nature by anecdote.

The problem is compounded by the writing. The author thrives on the obscure and the knowing reference. It feels a little like a middle-class dinner party where everyone makes asides to the latest Guardian commentary or a particular popular poet. Instead of drawing us in like evocative nature writings of authors like Barry Lopez or Gavin Maxwell I found myself jarred by the scatter-gun approach. At times the author is either taking the piss - or being deliberately obscure. I was bemused by his description of a sky as being "the weird white of boiled fish eye" but repelled by his comment about frogs that "squat on stones, like turd splats". Perhaps this was a clever reference to someone's poetry I thought, but a quick google tells me that Lewis-Stempel is the only writer that seems to have used these similes.

But these turns of phrase aren't the main problem. Rather its the approach to nature which extracts individuals species out of the wider context and sees them only through the eye of the beholder. John Lewis-Stempel understands that landscape (and ponds particularly) are the result of human interaction with the land - but he only talks about it in the present. This history only exists to allow him to talk about what he sees today. It's a decidedly flat nature that left me very disappointed.

Related Reviews

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Carson - Silent Spring
Carson - Under the Sea Wind