Country Series: Old English Villages

Rating:
Summary: Nice visual & text intro to the classic English village
Review: I'm a genealogist, and since recently uncovering a lineage that takes me back into Tudor and Stewart times in several rural English counties, I've been reading about and hunting up photos of small English towns and villages. It's hard to find views that don't include motorways, television towers, and supermarkets, but this splendid book brims over with gorgeous, glossy color photos of many varieties of the "classic" English village. Even better, the text identifies what you're looking at in considerable detail, gives a capsule history, and explains the differences between traditions and cultures in (say) Somerset, Norfolk, and Yorkshire -- which is important for us Yanks, even those of us who are well read in history. For instance, I've heard the term "black and white architecture," but really didn't have a mental picture of what it referred to. A lively piece of work.