New Lives, New Landscapes Revisited : Rural Modernity in Britain

How did rural Britain become modern during the twentieth century? New Lives, New Landscapes examines how the development of modern infrastructure in Britain transformed both its landscapes and the lives of those who lived within them. Shifting the focus away from the city, the narrative challenges us to rethink what we mean by modern Britain.

In 1970, the Architectural Press published New Lives, New Landscapes, Nan Fairbrother''s optimistic account of how the British landscape was materially transformed in the post-war decades. Reservoirs, power stations, television and radio-transmitter masts, electricity and telephone pylons, as well as local authority housing and new or improved roads, produced a new rurality. So too did state-subsidised agricultural intensification, wider public access to the countryside, and environmentally protective measures. These included landscape designations such as National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Central to Fairbrother''s approach was the concomitant transformation in how British people interacted with these new landscapes in an age of increased mobility. This new edited collection of essays, New Lives, New Landscapes Revisited: Rural Modernity in Britain brings a fresh historical perspective to bear on Fairbrother''s concerns. It examines how the changing relationship between government, state, and citizen gave rise to a distinct rural modernity during the middle decades of the twentieth century.