|
| |
Akenfield
Ronald Blythe
Editions
| Cover |
Publisher |
ISBN Number |
Price |
Buy |
| pbk |
Penguin |
0141181168 |
£7.99 |
 |
Review
 This book looks even more extraordinary in the year 2000 than when it first appeared in the 1960s, since the world it describes is that much more distant. Structured round interviews with inhabitants, interspersed with short essays by Blythe, Akenfield is a minutely detailed study of a Suffolk village and the changes that happened to it during the Twentieth Century. We read about the effects on the land and population of the long agricultural depression after 1880, of the First World War, the appearance of cars and tractors, television and so forth. Within two generations the place is transformed from a crushingly poor, isolated, quasi-feudal village into a typical satellite of a city (Ipswich). It is a gripping book, and should be read by anybody who wants to understand how Britain has changed, and anybody interested in the social impact of the First World War. - review by Johnny de Falbe
|
Fax:
020 7581 2084