Complete your New Naturalist collection with Harper Collins's facsimile versions, which are printed on demand. A Natural History of Man in Britain was first published in 1951.
One of the aims of this series is to present a comprehensive survey of our natural history in relation to its background and environment. A first and vital consideration in a project of over fifty volumes is the study of man himself through the ages, against the very varied natural conditions afforded by the British Isles. A Natural History of Man in Britain is such a study. In the words of the editors, "we believe that it will contribute much to the outlook of man as one with nature, that alone can save our beautiful islands from wrongful changes, from the degradation and destruction which may result equally from unplanned development as from wrongly conceived planning."
Surely no man, by academic training and subsequent studies, is as well fitted to undertake a review of this vast and complex field as Professor Fleure. His long association with the University of Wales at Aberystwyth and his connection with the University of Manchester have given him distinctive viewpoints. It is now more than thirty years since he published his Human Geography in Western Europe and more than twenty years since, with the late H. J. Peake, he began that remarkable series of volumes, the Corridors of Time. We owe A Natural History of Man in Britain to a perfect combination of historian, anthropologist, geographer and naturalist. It is the fruit of a lifetime's gathering.
"This is a book which will tell the natural scientist a great deal about man and his history in Britain which he does not know. It will enable the historian to see man's past in Britain in a new and ecological way, and may give both natural scientist and historian a new respect for the broad and stimulating contribution to knowledge that the really good human geographer can make."
– The Spectator
"A fascinating book, rich in unusual fact and informed and intriguing influence – an extremely interesting and readable record of man in Britain from the earliest days to the urban civilisation of our times."
– Scotsman
"The knowledge displayed is encyclopaedic, the style so limpidly simple that the ordinary man will benefit as greatly as the scientist."
– Manchester Evening News
"A remarkable book."
– Education
"It is the fruit of a lifetime's work by a man of exceptional breadth of intellect."
– Yorkshire Post
"Fully and admirably illustrated. It is the compound of an immense store of knowledge and a lifetime of reflection."
– Times Educational Supplement
"The book is very largely a social and economic history, and will probably be more valuable to a naturalist than a purely "natural" history could have been. It enables the reader to see recent history in its true perspective against the background of the millennia of pre-history."
– Royal Geographic magazine