Abstract
David Matless’ England’s Green follows his 1998 work Landscape and Englishness. Where the latter explored how culture and nature shaped and reflected English identity from 1918 to the 1950s, England’s Green updates that journey and projects us into the future. While Landscape and Englishness represented a trip through archives and second-hand bookshops, England’s Green is much more personal, infused with Matless’ travels around the country, glimpses of his school days and a deep dive into his eclectic record collection. The book weaves the personal with the political, the nostalgic with the contemporary, and in doing so, offers a textured and sometimes dizzying journey through English identity. Matless’ ‘excursion around the green’ (p. 18) is a vast yet evocative undertaking, moving fluidly between memory and meaning.
This is a very English book, a very English read. From the start. Matless embeds the reader into Blake’s Jerusalem, but one distorted and developed through Billy Bragg, The Fall and numerous other voices. The ideas and ideals evoked in Jerusalem are taken up as a landscape of contradictions, embraced by both left and right-wing politics, reflecting tensions between tradition, modernity, and national identity. The book places a mirror to England, asking the reader to consider what it is and how its identity has been shaped over time.
Rooted in the landscape, Matless brings places like the maypole at Wellow, Nottingham and the Watchtree Stone in Cumbria (a memorial to foot and mouth disease) into sharp focus. His interdisciplinary approach, drawing on policy, geography, art, and literature, explores tensions between center and periphery, capital and regions, urban and rural classes, and traditional and industrial values. Matless clearly illustrates this tension through the 1960s children’s TV program Camberwick Green, where Windy Miller’s traditionalist values contrast with Farmer Bell’s embrace of progressive industrialization. With nostalgia, I recollect Camblewick Green, but as with many of Matless’ references – Worzel Gummidge, Magnus Pyke, and the Clangers – had never connected their relevance in portraying and informing the landscape of England and its identity. This book underscores the geographical significance of events large and small, from playground games and pagan rituals to the Torrey Canyon disaster and Greenham Common protests in shaping the discourse on the green and the identity of the nation.
A major strength of England’s Green is its nuanced analysis of the political dimensions of landscape, showing how ideas of ‘greenness’ are shifting, historically dependent and ideologically charged. Matless does not romanticize the green or the countryside but critically examines how they are constructed and maintained. As nature and culture intertwine, he uses ‘Green’ as a language of critique.
But am I sure what England’s Green is? At times, it feels difficult to grasp. As with Landscape and Englishness, it could never be definitive – it is Matless’ personal vision. Some might critique what is absent, but the book resonated with me. It is a nostalgic journey that might have been broader, but then it would have been a different book – perhaps less personal, less engaging. Instead, England’s Green is a rich and thought-provoking guide to places to see, books to read, music to seek out, and old children’s TV programs to rediscover.
England’s Green provides an informative guide for those curious about the dynamic connections between England’s culture, nature and identity over the past 60 years. Additionally, the encyclopedic reference list provided by Matless makes this an important resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students alike, providing a nuanced gateway for deeper exploration of the themes lifted in the book.
