England’s Green

Book excerpt: A sweeping history of how ecological challenges have shaped English society over the last sixty years. England’s Green explores how environmental concerns have shaped and reflected English national identity since the 1960s. From agriculture to leisure, climate change, folklore, archaeology, and religion, David Matless shows how national environmental debates connect to the local, regional, global, and postcolonial worlds. Moving across a breadth of material including government policy, popular music, ecological polemic, and television comedy, England’s Green shows the richness and complexity of English environmental culture. Along the way, Matless tracks how today’s debates over climate and nature, land, and culture, have been molded by events over the past sixty years.