Nature Contested: Environmental History in Scotland and Northern Ireland Since 1600

This work is about four centuries of conflict over some the most valued landscapes in Europe combining social and cultural history with ecology and geography. The highlands, islands and borders of Scotland, the Lake District and northern moors of England form a natural region, whose wildness has inspired some and oppressed others. The crags and moorlands have been both treasured for their beauty and biodiversity and reviled as unproductive deserts to be improved and reclaimed. The contest between these two views of nature – conservation versus development; jobs versus birds; landscape versus forestry; use versus delight -is at the centre of the book. “By the end”, the author writes, “I hope to have presented on my theatre a dramatic tale that tells us a fair amount not only of northern Britain, but something about the globe and the European west as a whole over the last four hundred years”.