Agricultural History Review, Volume 53 Part 2 (2005), p. 258

Recent years have seen a growing interest amongst historians in regions and regionalism. Part of this has been the continued chewing over of the old chestnut of a North-South divide splitting England into economically, socially and culturally separate spheres. This edited collection of six essays offers a stimulating approach to this topic by exploring the development and idea of a divide over the last thousand years. It thus illustrates the way in which such distinctions are temporally as well as spatially informed. By beginning with the present and working back through time, the book forms a refreshing departure from the usual notion that a narrative must be told from the start (in the past) to its conclusion (in the present). However, this approach brings with it the danger that we project onto the past those concepts and geographies which are seen as important today, but which had little resonance with people in earlier ages. This seems especially true of the notion of a North- South divide: whilst differences between the two regions are apparent whenever we look for them, the idea that this amounted to a significant spatial or psychological divide becomes less certain as we move back in time. In attempting to discover something of the roots of perceptions of place, self and other, this book highlights the constructed and relational nature of North and South: it is impossible to have one without the other. And yet it is clear that this kind of approach is problematical in its application to earlier times, especially the early modern history review and medieval periods. Assembling data which might be used to reveal ‘real’ divisions is one thing, reconstruct-ing the thoughts and imaginations of people who lived a thousand years ago is quite another, especially when the vast majority of them left no written record.

The early chapters are thus generally strong on both the materiality and imagination of a North-South divide. In discussing the late twentieth century, Ron Martin outlines the stark contrasts between the two halves of the country, but devotes most attention to the underlying causes of this division, arguing that its re-emergence in the last thirty years is linked to a shift in Britain from an industrial to a post-industrial society. In the second chapter, Danny Dorling argues strongly that the middle decades of the twentieth century were the period when the division between North and South ran deepest in material terms without becoming apparent to the people at the time. There is a problem here, however, in that he largely ignores a wide range of literature which set out to explore what was clearly recognized as a deep and, at least in part, socially-constructed divide. Chapter Three focuses on the period 1830–1918. Here, Philip Howell maintains that, even during an age when northern industrialism was at its height, economic and political power never shifted from the South and especially London. Moreover, he argues, southern culture was also in the ascendancy and southern notions of Englishness increasingly came to dominate the national psyche. In contrast, Mark Billinge sees the period of the classic industrial revolution as being marked by a pronounced shift in the balance of power towards the industrializing North. Yet what emerges most strongly from his analysis is the complexity of English regionalism and identity. The problems of identifying a coherent and strongly differentiated North and South appear to become more severe as we move back in time. John Langton’s survey of early-modern England is equivocal on the existence of a ‘real’ divide, whilst imagined geographies placed more emphasis on the nation than the region. Following from this, Bruce Campbell argues that many apparent manifestations of a North-South divide in medieval England were, ironically, the result of attempts to construct – both in reality and in the collective consciousness – an English nation; rather that North-South distinctions were blurred by those of upland-lowland, London provinces and core-periphery.

Individually, then, each chapter offers a fascinating account of English economy and culture, regionalism and identity. In order to explore the extent of and reasons behind the changing realities and imaginings of North and South, however, we need to be able to trace themes and concepts from one chapter to the next. Here,the diverse approaches and standpoints of the contributors can make comparisons through time problematical. What emerges clearly enough is that, whilst differences between North and South were a feature of England from the Norman conquest onwards, the perception of division hardened through time, especially during and after the industrial revolution. Martin, Dorling and Howell are clear about the existence and strength of a North-South divide, whereas Langton and Campbell seem far less certain that this is what they have found. In emphasizing the over-riding importance of the medieval and early modern project of nation-building, they imply that internal spatial divisions can only emerge once there is a strong national identity. In this light, the North-South divide can be seen as a political project, embarked upon once national borders and identities were secure, which had the intent of (re)establishing the superiority and dominance of power in the core. Whether this is how we choose to read and understand North and South, this exploration of the changing realities and imaginings of this most contentious of socio-spatial divisions serves to challenge what we think we know about England’s past and present.