Yorkshire: A lyrical history of England's greatest county

Description

Yorkshire is 'a continent unto itself', a region where mountain, plain, coast, downs, fen and heath lie close. By weaving history, family stories, travelogue and ecology, Richard Morris reveals how Yorkshire took shape as a landscape and in literature, legend and popular regard. The result is a fascinating and wide-ranging meditation on Yorkshire and Yorkshireness, told through the prism of the region's most extraordinary people and places.

Richard Morris is emeritus professor of archaeology at the University of Huddersfield. He began his career working on excavations under York Minster in 1971. Since then he has worked as a university teacher, as director of the Council for British Archaeology, as director of the Leeds Institute for Medieval Studies, and as a writer and composer. His book Churches in the Landscape (1989) is widely regarded as a pioneering classic. Time's Anvil: England, Archaeology and the Imagination was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and shortlisted for the Current Archaeology Book of the Year Award.

Reading the book is like watching the author sift through layers of time ... There is a wealth of fascinating information - Guardian [A] quirky, personal history of the Ridings ... Morris writes insightfully not just about one county, but about how places become what they are - Mail on Sunday In this meticulously researched book, Richard Morris reveals Yorkshire and Yorkshireness through a series of extraordinary journeys and stories ... [His] description of the River Swale as glittering and energetic could be a metaphor for his own writing, which is itself relentlessly energetic ... Fascinating - Country Life