Description
Book SynopsisThis book will appeal not only to historians and geographers, but to many who maintain a deep interest in the British countryside and its past, and to those who continue to share a fascination for the Second World War, in particular the 'home front'. The Battle of the Fields tells the story of rural community and authority in Britain during the Second World War by looking at the County War Agricultural Executive Committees. From 1939 they were imbued with powers to transform British farming to combat the loss of food imports caused by German naval activity and initial European mainland successes. Their powers were sweeping and draconian. When fully exercised against recalcitrant farmers, dispossession in part or whole could and did result. This book includes the most detailed analysis of these dispossessions including the tragic case of Ray Walden, the Hampshire farmer who was killed by police after refusing to leave hisfarmhouse in 1940. The committees were deemed successful by Whitehall as harbingers of modernity: mechanization, draining, artificial fertilizers, reclamation of heaths, marshes and woodlands. We now deplore some of these changes but Britain did not starve, in large part thanks to their efforts. This book will appeal not only to historians and geographers, but to many who maintain a deep interest in the British countryside and its past, and tothose who continue to share a fascination for the Second World War, in particular the "home front". It will also demonstrate to all who are anxious about food security in the modern age how this question was dealt with 70 years ago. BRIAN SHORT is Emeritus Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Sussex, and formerly Dean of School and Head of the Department of Geography.
Trade ReviewThe book is beautifully constructed and the author is to be congratulated for providing such a detailed and comprehensive investigation of a wide range of secondary and primary sources. * THE LOCAL HISTORIAN *
A model for further research..This volume should therefore serve as encouragement for all local, community, social and economic historians interested in rural society and the British home front. * FAMILY & COMMUNITY HISTORY *
[An] admirable book.. Professor Short's highly detailed, elegant and well-crafted account draws upon a massive array of sources and is likely for the foreseeable future to remain the primary work in the field. * TWENTIETH CENTURY BRITISH HISTORY *
A detailed and comprehensive account.. Short's book is both thought provoking and captivating, providing an intricate and ultimately unrivalled account of issues of authority and food security during the Second World War that comes highly recommended to both the academic and the more generalist reader with a particular interest in the period. * JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY *
Winston Churchill wrote that the only threat that really worried him during WW II was that German U-boats could disrupt the flow of food, troops, and military supplies. British farmers rose to the challenge by dramatically increasing food production, and geographer Short provides a deeply researched study of County War Agricultural Executive Committees, which significantly contributed to that achievement. Recommended. * CHOICE *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: writing food security in the mid-twentieth century Prelude: the 1930s and the origins and purpose of state intervention in farming Rural society on the eve of war The arrival of the county committees and their structures The membership of the county committees and their role in farm surveillance Networking the rural community Dispossessing farmers in England and Wales during and after the war Power and tragedy: the sad case of Ray Walden Reclamation: environmental and landscape transformation 1939 - 1945 Reclamation: the Fenland and coastal marshes Wartime farming and state control in Scotland and Northern Ireland Representation, memory and fiction 1945 and Postwar continuities Contradictions in a countryside at war
