Real England: The Battle Against the Bland by Paul Kingsnorth

Real England: The Battle Against the Bland Reviews

• 
  Ellen

  Mark Rylance has brought up this book during recent interviews regarding his role in the play Jerusalem, and Kingsnorth wrote a short essay for the latest Jerusalem (West End return) programme, so I really wanted to read it. I wasn't disappointed.
  
  In the same vein as Show of Hands' song "Roots", this book discusses how English traditions are disappearing -- and no one seems to care nor even notice. As with the song, it's not meant to be an anthem for the BNP nor the EDL (recall how angry Steve Knightley and Phil Beer were when the BNP tried use 'Roots'). It talks more about how the English seem almost embarrassed about their traditions, such as Morris dancing and how some people even decry them as not being traditional -- falsely claiming that Morris dancing was a Victorian tradition.
  
  However, Kingsnorth goes even deeper, looking at the role economics plays in the loss of traditions, such as the fact that more and more traditional pubs are closing (and are replaced by flats, coffee shops or corporate-run pubs that care only about the bottom line and eschew individuality and taste). Smallm traditional, neighourhood markets, such as Queens in London, don't make enough money; that space would be better turned into flats, offices and flashy shops, say developers.
  
  I don't necessarily agree with everything that Kingsnorth says. But his viewpoint is one that needs to be heard -- and not only in the UK.
• 
  Nunya

  Excellent book. I love a book that has a central thesis but explains it through a thousand, concrete, real-world examples. Absolutely filled with examples of the rot setting in England, all in the name of progress and growth.
  
  I would give it five stars except for he fumbles the ball at the goal line. Goes on-and-on about all this pointless growth, and only once mentions immigration, in a chapter about Ashford. Where is this growth coming from? The native birth rate is flat. The desire for growth comes from an obsession with increasing GDP. Well, what is central to that? Immigration. Why are there not enough houses? Immigration. What is it increasing the population and increasing demand for more megashops, roads, utilities, everything paving over England? Immigration.
  
  It may not be the sole cause, but for a book that talks all about sacrificing England, very little attention is paid to immigration. He bemoans that the notion of English identity and culture have been seized on by the far-Right as a "white identity" issue, and I agree with what he says about how political thinking ossifies out brains, simplifies things, makes us unable to see what's right in front of our eyes... but he himself is too afraid to speak too strongly about what is considered a main driver of growth - immigrants 'doing the jobs we don't want to' so we can expand into more comfy jobs, and pushing the Holy GDP number upwards - lest he be lumped in with the BNP and UKIP.
  
  Still, an excellent, if depressing, summation of everything going wrong in England right now, presented as a fairly unbiased account, simply interviewing the different voices from all walks of life all over England, and what they see going on in their own back gardens.
• 
  Annette

  I'm indebted to Tim Hansen for telling me about this book.
  
  Six historic Celtic nations:
  Cornwall, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Isle of Man
  
  "something [organic] replaced by something manufactured" -- makes me think of how Jim and I rake up the leaves all around us instead of using the bagged mulch that our neighbors purchase...
  
  *a sense of place
  
  "England is a nation; Britain is a political convenience."
  
  Three killers:
  big business and big government
  21st century class conflict
  reluctance to speak up, stand up
  
  "elites never ask permission"
  
  "the power of money"
  
  I'm totally enchanted reading about Robin Page!
  
  agri*culture* vs. agri*business* -- I'm originally from Iowa. I understand this.
  
  A minority is destroying us: chain stores, developers, agri-business, big landowners. We live in Brevard, North Carolina, a town with almost all local businesses on Main Street, but for how long? We love living here, but we're among the dreaded hoards "from off" who bought a house for cash. Guilt, guilt....
• 
  Lorenzo Berardi

  The main thesis behind this book is that there is no such thing as a "Real England". Not anymore. Not if you don't seek and fight for it. Whereas community pubs, local shops, farms and orchards used to stay for centuries an avalanche of Tesco supermarkets, chain stores and suburban "redevelopment" settlements have drawn a new English-non English landscape.
  
  This is a new England where you can travel from north Brighton to south Carlisle without noticing any difference around you. Some people may find this evenness somehow reassuring making their grocery at Asda, buying clothes in Primark, selecting a new tea table from an Argos catalog, sipping a latte from a Starbucks branded cuppa and then heading to the nearest multiplex cinema, but not Mr Kingsnorth. And I am with him.
  
  Although, "Real England" could be sometimes too idealist and no-logo oriented for my liking, I have to admit how what still strikes me in this country is how many things have this tendency of looking everywhere the same. What made either a little town or an average size city different from the others, that local character these places used to have is fading away while a few people seem to care.
  
  Let's talk about my own personal experience in England. I moved to Abingdon (30,000 inhabitants) from Oxford just 9 months ago. In the meantime, 4 pubs have closed down just like 3 shops did in the downtown area, while two mini-Tescos and a Coop supermarket have opened. Abingdon High Street is lined with estate agencies, branch banks and the occasional charity shop. The local council thought about move and diminish the local library. There is no functioning movie-theatre in Abingdon and very little to do after 5 PM, apart from shopping in a 24 hours open Tesco at the edge of town. The favourite meeting point of the local kids is a kebab van parked in the Market Square.
  
  Overall, I have got the feeling that Paul Kingsnorth is right: everything which made England English has been swallowed by international standardization and poor redevelopment. What I don't really like in this book is just the way it talks about "They".
  "They" are the enemies of local communities, co-operatives and villagers who try to defend their surrounding from the brand invasion. "They" could be banks, local authorities, corporations or quangos (the funny neologism they use to name State-owned agencies in the UK), but are always evil.
  Which is a point of view. As a matter of fact, Kingsnorth here creates a counterposition between these "They" and a sort of "Us" suggesting that every Englishman and woman should be aware of what is happening to their country.
  
  This clash is nothing new. It's decades that English anthropoligists, historians, sociologists, economists and novelists are warning against the end of England as an identifiable entity. Some people blamed the growing influence of immigrants on the English society while others (and Kingsnorth gets the credit of being among them) reckon how foreigners actually brought even more diversity and cultural richness into England being victims and not executioners of the social impoverishment of a whole country.
  
  Back in 1938 and back from the horrors of the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell decided to dedicate to his own homeland the final lines of "Homage to Catalonia":
  
  "Down here it was still the England I had known in my childhood: the railway-cuttings smothered in wild flowers, the deep meadows where the great shining horses browse and meditate, the slow-moving streams bordered by willows, the green bosoms of the elms, the larkspurs in the cottage gardens; and then the huge peaceful wilderness of outer London, the barges of the miry river, the familiar streets, the posters telling of cricket matches and Royal weddings, the men in bowlers hats, the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, the red buses, the blue policemen - all sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs".
  
  Nowadays, this extremely long - but all the same wonderful - paragraph could be easily read as a prophecy of what would have happened next: World War II, Coventry and the Blitz, the hard years after the end of the conflict with the final gasp of a tottering British Empire.
  But what Orwell was also trying to say in this elegy of a bygone land is that his own country was on the verge of losing its peculiarities, its character, what made England a different place than the rest of Europe.
  
  That deep, deep sleep which the abrupt awakening of German bombs and V2s would have eventually stopped was at the same time a critic and a praise of England in Orwell's words. On the one hand, it certainly meant distrust and closeness towards the rest of the world, but on the other hand it also implied a diversity brought by centuries of a parallel social, cultural and political development. England was going to lose all of this and Orwell knew very well how, for better or worse, most of the unmistakable Englishness he liked and despised would have disappeared soon.
  
  It's no coincidence that Paul Kingsnorth quotes Orwell pretty often here.
  "Real England" worths to be read if only for learning a few things about England that don't appear very often in the newsreels and becoming familiar with a bunch of characters who dedicated their lives to the survival of what the Kinks named "The Village Green Preservation Society". It was 1968 and a pop band had already spotted very well what was going on in England.
  
• 
  Jack Theaker

  "You could call me a Marxist - you'd be wrong", the smugness of this statement sums up everything wrong with, not the book, but Kingsnorth.
  
  I agree with 99% of the analysis in the book, and the writing is a complement as well (if a little self-indulgent at times) but Kingsnorth lacks mediation with any kind of totality to come to a correct conclusion that accompanies his study of English declinism.
  
  The opening chapter where he alludes to various currents within postmodernism such as ahistoricism, indifference, flatness, monochromaticism, and a lack of place - lacks a firm sense of putting his finger on the pulse of the problem and diagnosing what is truly wrong from his findings. His diagnosis instead is predicated on a third way between what he views as 'right' and 'left' answers to this declinism. His answer instead is blaming both multinational corporations and big government for our country's problems, the alternative is not clear - though no doubt his third way involves some kind of mass grassroots action which, as we find out, is actually futile in the face of multinationals and big government.
  
  The next chapter is a sobering one, documenting the decline of the public house - I think he is correct, the pub is one of my favourite institutions doubtless and his historical analysis of the gastropub metamorphosis is good. I too am perturbed by the advent of the gastropub and the clientele it manufactures - but running throughout this book is an almost wholly uncritical faith in the alternative to the monopolies.
  The example he gives of a local landlord ranting about 'government red tape' (which Kingsnorth backs) in 'forcing' them to adopt ramps for wheelchairs and disabled toilets is a curious one. In my experience (which in fairness, is wealthy) I have experienced many a pub without these facilities that do not seem to have big brother banging down their door in order to deliver personal independence to the disabled. Though regardless, Kingsnorth's subjects claim to have experienced this, alongside the death of tradition - tradition in question being the 4-man haul of a wheelchair user over a step through the doorway into the pub, which I'm sure the wheelchair found as amusing as the chortling landlord in the background and laments the forced installation of said wheelchair ramp.
  Further, by uncritically supporting the views of the landlords (for that is what they are, despite their 'independent' dispositions) Kingsnorth successfully conceals their relationship to other actors within the habitus of the pub. I often think about those 'independent' country pubs that rely intensely on exploitative labour practices and the flexibility of their workforce. Indeed, this was a key talking point on the spoons strikes that happened where workers argued that independent pubs did not necessarily have better employment practices than wetherspoons and boycotting wetherspoons for independent pubs would ultimately lead to shorter working hours and hence less pay. Not to defend wetherspoons, although there is a special place in my heart reserved from them, but I believe we should not be too hasty siding with the petit bourgeois over the established bourgeois as any good Marxist analysis would conclude. Kingsnorth has great fun in his childish use of the 'class war' in this country but I'm not quite sure he realises the historical weight or meaning of that term.
  That being said, I do not think his segue onto community pubs at the end is a negative one, and exploring alternative forms of ownership is definitely an advance - yet he has neglected that it is in fact the role of the state, of local government that often supports these 'assets of community value'. So instead of rallying against government overreach, we should be asking questions of how its visible hand can be used in navigating the invisible hand of the market.
  
  Subsequent chapters on canals, open spaces, orchards and other stuff are weaker yet provide a few compelling insights with the same pitfalls. Its a widely accepted fact amongst us aesthetes that shopping malls are bad for example - once again, they are the enemy of the independent and purveyors of the illusion of choice - yet Kingsnorth falls into the trap that Owen Hatherley notes of frothing at the mouth before the sight of the relatively indifferent shopping centre rather than the iron laws of monopoly capitalism that hewed it up from the ground.
  
  Canals, and his focus on margins, which I've always found an interesting approach to pyschogeography were another target of scrutiny for him. A lot of this chapter was focused against the state body of British Waterways, which was later to become the Canal and River Trust charity, and their de facto enclosure of canalside land in the name of property development. No mention was made of the dynamics of charity and the neglect of funding from serial governments under motives of austerity. Elsewhere in the book he talks of a lot of his objects of scrutiny as ends in themself, but does not provide a path for governmental shift towards receiving this - the onus is always placed on a cognitive shift within the beloved folk he celebrates elsewhere in the book.
  
  This beloved folk is nowhere hailed as much as in the sector on farming. The background is setup well by Kingsnorth - our countryside is one of England's prides and the rural-urban dichotomy stands not just as currently unique in our concentration of population within the metropoles, but historically important in being one of the dynamics integral to proletarianisation and hence the England's industrial revolution. The passage has a keen focus on farmholders on the brink of proletarianisation either being forced to adapt to changing circumstances (by, woe betide, converting some of their buildings to expensive AirBnB's) or give up the profession altogether. Now, it is regrettable that farm buildings, farm aesthetics are being eschewed and unanchored from the essence of the noble savage of pre-industrial arcadia (which in fairness, Kingsnorth notes was never as glamorous as oft depicted) but no attempt is made to bridge the gap between this freeplay of farm signifiers and its imposition by monopoly agribusiness, and the laws of capitalism that force this. Further, apart from a passing sentence (something to do with "watching the poles" as he bites into an apple), no scrutiny or attention whatsoever is given to the armies of farm labourers that represent a contingent of the unobserved international proletariat/precariat - and face some of the most exploitative conditions in Europe (and by all means a product of one of the EU's four 'freedoms': labour). The account is qualitatively a world apart from John Berger and his incisive, anthropological analysis into this in Pig Earth (the foreword to the 'into their labours' trilogy is a great start). Instead, Kingsnorth gives undue attention to a telegraph columnist known as "England's last peasant" who, with poor refutation from Kingsnorth, emphatically opines that the black community in England unfairly receive preferential treatment compared to the farmers of albion - the latter, being subject to 'ethnic cleansing'. Enoch Powell's rhetoric flows through the furrows of this man's psyche and instead of questioning, asserting and condemning this man's reactionary proclivities, Kingsnorth wants to get to the bottom of how this man thinks. To me its very simple, he is a reactionary, a red-faced farmer with a smallholding that is sad about the inevitable dissolution of his property and livelihood in the face of stronger competition from monopoly agribusiness. What I find more compelling is that this process (which has been ongoing since the advent of industrial capitalism) often drives the lower rungs of the bourgeoisie towards a fascist disposition - an insincere romanticisation of the land and nature, conceal a deeper jealousy and nausea, the anger stemming from which gets directed at abstract targets in the culture war, in this case the black community - for some reason - as alluded to earlier.
  
  Indeed this manifests a wider criticism of the rest of the book, what Kingsnorth is describing (quite specifically, in the fact his chosen subjects never seem to be from any contemporary material working class) is not a result of some failure of our collective aesthetic sensibilities to realise the 'blandness' of every day life and rally against its all-pervasiveness, but a result of capitalism in decay. When capitalism is in decay like this, and monopoly capitalism tends towards the flatness of cultural values; those in the middle strata, bereft of essence, tend to float towards opposition to abstract signifiers of their perceived oppression - government 'red tape', adversaries in the culture war, and those who don't recycle their milk cartons.
  
  Kingsnorth's analysis needs to have more depth to it than purely just 'things ain't what they used to be' and grounding this in flowery romantic language designed to incense the George Monbiot eco-liberals of this world. I too lose sleep over the decline of merrie olde england, but I'm realistic - only a thorough analysis of the historical, political and economic factors that got us here, coupled with a comprehensive overview of our current contradictions (of which the monopoly vs the independent is the most pertinent here, with one not being able to claim pure victory over the other) is necessary.
• 
  Simon Harrison

  I recently found myself being interviewed for my opinions on the "Vision and Urban Strategy for Holborn" in London, where I work. The interviewers were young students plus some Camden Council workers, and it quickly became apparent that we were at odds. I wanted to know where the money came from, they thought the amount was more important than the source. I said I liked messy and well-used, they liked steel and glass. They liked / I hated the planned zones etc etc etc. There was almost 30 years separating the interviewers and interviewee, and there is now almost 20 years separating "now" from this book's publication. I read it to check if I'd gone mad.
  Most of the specific things it warned about have happened. The redevelopment of Castlemill Boatyard in Oxford went ahead, Sheringham got its unwanted Tesco, London's Chinatown got its makeover, Liverpool's "Paradise Project" became Liverpool ONE. During the same period, London's Tin Pan Alley went, Elephant and Castle is no more, Kings Cross and Paddington basin became their own new things.
  The book sets out an argument that distinctiveness has a positive value in itself, creates feelings of belonging, leading to actual creation of physical communities (people doing things together in person) and that the capturing of our community spaces by large non-local companies has significant (sometimes unintended, sometimes arguably not) negative consequences. Blandness is one, privatisation and removal of communal spaces another. The creation of "Dormer Towns" was new to me but it's a useful concept to describe places where people return to mostly sleep. And again new to me was William Cobbett's concept of "the Thing", to describe that strange something which gradually makes things worse.
  The last difficulty it deals with is the English embarrassment with Englishness, and how our reluctance to deal with it has both lead to its being claimed by thugs and demagogues, and allowed corporations and unelected regional business quangos to decide that progress means buying more things.
  So while I may have not gone mad, it's little consolation. When I asked my interviewers where the money for Holborn's redevelopment was coming from they told me it was TFL and "some other places". As I pressed for an answer to who they were, it was the look on their faces that made me realise I might have lost contact with reality: they looked scared of me.
  Those other places turned out to include The London Property Alliance and West End Partnerships, both of which are part of larger organisations, that relate to other larger ... etc. Perhaps a trustee of the Holborn Community Association who works as a barrister with an "understanding of complex financial structures" might help me to work it out. But I doubt it.
  
• 
  Imogen

  When I first saw the title of this book, I thought it might be something too... patriotic for me, a railing against the disappearing England of the past century with all its colonial and conservative connotations. But when I started to read it, I was entranced; it details the ways in which the landscape is becoming homogenised and levelled and changed from what it was like centuries ago. There is a lot to love about the past, and the parts in this book that resonated most with me are the parts about the agricultural and natural past, and how with every year the numbers of native and visiting birds decrease. The hedgerows shrank and the field-mice and harvest-mice fled, the foxes were forced into the cities... but the chapter ends on a hopeful note. Things can change, if we try, and things are slowly getting better in the hedgerows. Given that this was written pre-Brexit, upon re-reading it after the Brexit vote I worry more for the future.
  
  The chapters on wildlife alone would be enough for me to recommend this book, but it also discusses the degradation of pubs, of villages, of canals and locks, and things that are a part of this landscape that I had never thought about. It talks, too, about the importance of markets and meeting-places.
  
  This book is brilliant, and more necessary than ever.
• 
  NoBeatenPath

  While there is much in the general premise of this book that I agree with - that the British highstreet is becoming a homogenised and bland place that ultimately threatens consumer choice for example - the general tone of it was ultimately off-putting. The insinuation that cities/urban centres are not 'English' reveals a snobbery or provincialism that overlooks English history and reality. The world Kingsnorth uses as examples of 'Real England' is often entertaining, but there is almost a bigotry against anything that dares to be progressive, which is at odds with some of the greatest achievements of England over the past century.
  
  In summary - the author doesn't like towns, and seems to think we should all live in small, preferably rural, communities. And if you don't like that idea you are obviously someone who is stupid enough to have been sucked into the insidious globalisation that is ruining this sceptred isle.
• 
  Andrew Figueiredo

  Paul Kingsnorth is a lovely writer, and in "Real England" he laments the loss of local heterogeneity in the "flattening of ... history, heritage, landscapes, and cultures". (266) Kingsnorth travels across England, meeting pub owners, canal workers, and shopkeepers holding out against the encroachment of corporate globalization. Each one of his examples shows how government officials and business leaders (often well-meaning) end up blandifying the landscape, effacing regional cultures with a top-down approach. Kingsnorth, like so many authors I read, appreciates how efficiency cannot be the only end of economics and politics. Economism, he argues, erases genuine cultural diversity, substituting it for curated elite facades and "death by a thousand BMWs". (229) When this happens, he proposes, we lose apple varieties, genuine English pubs, immigrant-run market stalls, and so much more that can't be measured.
  
  Kingsnorth is skeptical of top-down solutions in general (see his explanation around page 85 about how government waterway management worsened the situation), instead encouraging a devolution of power alongside a stronger sense of belonging, for in a placeless time "it could be that the most radical thing to do is to belong." (16) Kingsnorth, still at this time a man more comfortable on the anti-globalization left than the dissident right [where his fame has skyrocketed since around 2020] does well to distinguish this healthy sense of belonging from xenophobia, instead arguing that a healthy patriotism is the best way to ward off an ugly jingoism. (285)
  
  Reading "Real England" reminded me of the variegated yet converging changes I witness in rural Portugal. The Airbnb-ification I've seen foists a degree of standardization on my ancestral homeland, sometimes squeezing out longtime dwellers and extinguishing what makes Portugal special. So much dies out if Portugal just becomes a playground for wealthy Americans, Brits, and Germans. I'm glad Kingsnorth so powerfully mourns fading traditions in this book--he reminds us that top-down ideas of progress have real tradeoffs and that we must do more to defend local uniqueness.
• 
  Anne

  Perhaps it was strange for me to read Real England: I'm not an Englander; I'm an American. And this book was timely fifteen years ago. I kept on reading and reading this book, and at first I couldn't explain to myself why. It's well written and researched, but why would I care?
  
  I picked up the book in the first place because a) I have been reading Paul Kingsnorth's substack, which is phenomenal and on point, and b) I was visiting England. I kept on reading it because it traces a similar history to the one I have lamented in the U.S. and it helped me put words to my own observations and see similar patterns here.
  
  I also wanted this book to help explain some of what we experienced in England. The country seemed somehow less foreign to me now than it had even twenty years ago, when I last visited. I think this must have been because of the "blands" described here, which are the same kinds crawling over our own landscape like so many parasites.
  
  This is perhaps more lamentable a pattern in England, where layers of the work of culture at a human scale have been laid down over the course of hundreds of years. There's no comparison to this in the United States, and what is left in England is perhaps more precious because of that. The English must not take their country's aged beauty for granted! I was not able to tell, from my trip, whether the situations in the book have improved or not, but there is still plenty to defend.
  
  Obviously, the Machine marches on. Themes from Real England trace easily into Mr. Kingsnorth's current work, which has only increased in depth and heft. Thank you, Mr. Kingsnorth.
• 
  Bob

  Reading this almost 20 years after it was published, it was a bit depressing that this creeping bland consumerist culture, aping the USA's is still very much with us, accelerated in many ways. It would be interesting for him to revisit the topic given we have now had the 2008 financial crash, covid, wars, cost of living squeeze. I knocked off a star as some parts were a bit repetitive (I guess that was kind of the point to show how widespread this Thing is). I also thing there's a bit of contradiction, why should canal locks and the trappings of Britain's Industrial Revolition be any more the 'Real England' than what he was railing against? It was the same mentality fuelling their expansion than it is of the crushing, breakneck speed 'redevelopment' of today. Loved his assessment of what's gone wrong with claiming 'Englishness' today, I think he really put his finger on it. I hadn't thought about the effect of the country being the only one in the UK without a devolved parliament...
• 
  Karen Eliot

  I’m sorry to have waited too long to read this marvellous book, deterred I think by the ways in which ‘England’ has been sneered at by the middle class and exploited by reprehensible elite power mongers who have hijacked the politics of place to foster sinister (and in fact globalist) agendas.
  
  Paul Kingsnorth writes so beautifully and passionately, never sparing himself, about the traps we have set ourselves. It’s poignant and doubly so to realise how much worse things have become in the decade and a bit since this was written. Too easy to feel defeated and powerless before the Leviathan.
  
  We can only change ourselves and commit to Right Action (and the rest) but it is never too late. 2020 is doing its best, not even one-third done, to contradict this but what is left when hope is gone?
  
  
• 
  Adam Johnson

  This book gathers the evidence to make a telling point, which is that England is blindly marching forward into a "blandscape" formed by the government - corporate nexus. With everything "big", branded and corporate, the local character that is actually meaningful is papered over. Kingsnorth shows this time and again in different settings, painting a bleak picture of the loss England is suffering.
  
  This has broader parallels than just England, of course, and it is the centralised myopia that is wiping out so much that is valuable, just as it creates so many of its own problems.
  
  An excellent book. If you can't bear the litany of loss, jumping to the last chapter sums up what is wrong with the current state of England, and what there is that can be done.
• 
  Naomi

  This book had been on my list for a while, and I was glad to get a chance to delve into it. Yes, it's old now and some things have changed remarkably, but the core message of relocalising, of community empowerment and of taking pride in small scale business, actions and lives is still as urgent and needed.
• 
  Jonathan Peel

  A superb book and a must read for anyone teaching or studying Butterworth's Jerusalem.
• 
  Mark Hebden

  What will England be in 10-15 years time? Bland, corporate and homogenised unless we do something about it, according to Real England by Paul Kingsnorth. This book, more of a rallying cry than a death wail, focuses on the increasingly dull cultural landscape of England. We travel to different places sampling the tales of woe from various individuals and groups. Farmers, brewers, lock keepers, inn keepers, market stall holders, and ordinary people who just care. Care about their culture, care about their diversity and way of life. Although written by a fully fledged member of the Left, this book is neither political nor partisan. It is written above politics taking in things that both left and right care about and want to protect, for the same reasons but with different methods.
  
  The omnipresent shadowy enemy are multinational corporations and an overwhelming government, who seem entwined in a symbiotic relationship of mutual cannibalism. There is more here though than anger and apathy, there are solutions, and they are simple. They must be simple, radical politics is only required for radical problems and the maintenance of our native landscape and vibrant culture is a simple proposition. We have been lazy and have not noticed the slow creep of the clones, but now we know. Most people are annoyed when their local pub becomes a Starbucks, or when a small bookshop closes to be replaced by a Subway, but few have done anything about it. Now, slowly but surely, people are. This is an important book, and a blueprint for direct action without having to commit to an ideology outside of caring for one’s own personal environment.
  
  The book focuses on England primarily because the author is English and felt that others would write better about their native land than he. Kingsnorth clarifies this by reserving special condemnation for the lack of an English parliament and the benefits that would bring. Far from being couched in petty nationalism, Kingsnorth explains that the English are at a distinct disadvantage from their Scottish or Welsh counterparts during parliamentary votes. Many people have a natural instinct to reject English pride through our historical attachment to Empires built on slavery and colonialism. Kingsnorth argues that it is possible to be a proud Englishman without becoming a jingoistic racist. Once we do that, we will realise the special things contained within these borders and be aware of just how fragile they are.
  It’s a wonderful book choc full of human interest stories and personal accounts of battles with big business and government bureaucracies.
  
  Anyone who has even a passing care of diversity of culture, individuality and England itself should read this book. There are some accusations of an unwillingness to change and nimbyism that will come but this isn’t about wanting to remain in the past, it’s about not wanting to change things for the worse, or change them just because if we do they will make more money. We know what out past is, the future is much darker at the moment, but it must contain an England that the people have asked for, not that “growth” has supplied them with. It can only do this if we take action.
• 
  Kathleen Fowler

  This book is a heartfelt appeal to the English to protect their heritage before it is too late, but I fear Kingsnorth is just a lone voice crying out in the wilderness. The English, as a whole, are too busy reaping the rewards of their affluence to take much interest in preserving independent pubs, or to worry about protecting the bohemian character of the canals. I sympathize with Kingnorth’s position and share his concerns, but I fear his David is challenging the Goliath of change, which rolls on relentlessly. And besides, some of the things he wishes to preserve may once themselves have been harbingers of change, resented and reviled by traditionalists of another, earlier era. The canals, for instance, were originally built during the industrial revolution to get coal to market more efficiently. I’m playing devil’s advocate here, but my point is that culture is always in flux, and that the innovation of today may be the quaint artifact of tomorrow.
  
  Kingsnorth is passionate about all things English, and his passion is infectious. Each chapter of his book examines a particular aspect of English heritage that is in danger of extinction: independent pubs and breweries, working canals, small shops, small farms, inner city neighborhoods, villages as real communities, and apple varieties. Every aspect of English life is undergoing commercialization and homogenization. This is not unique to England, of course, it’s happening all over the world as big business spreads its tentacles into every corner where there is big money to be made. Supermarkets run the small shops out of business, agribusiness runs the small farms out of business, local color is replaced by chain stores and malls, villages become bedroom communities. What remains is sterile and without character. The poor are displaced because they are taking up valuable space. What can be done about it? Community groups, historical preservation societies, small business associations and the like and have had very little impact thus far. Kingsnorth’s conclusion is that, since government seems to be in collusion with big business (the economic “bottom line” nowadays has become the end that justifies all means), it is up to (or down to, as the English say) the average citizen (known to big business as “the consumer”) to use the only real weapon they have: their purchasing power. If it were no longer profitable to pillage the “Real England” of the book’s title, it would stop. Let’s hope it’s not too late.
  
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  Karen

  This book is about some of the ways that the uniqueness of England's culture and landscape is being homogenized by economic policies that favor large corporate interests over small, local interests. Kingsnorth looks at the replacement of pubs that reflect local character with chain "pubs" that market themselves to certain populations instead of serving as a gathering place for a community, the loss of family farms to agribusiness, the loss of unique, locally owned stores in towns and villages across England to large out-of-town supermarkets and chain stores. The book is focused on England, but what Kingsnorth is pointing out can be found here in America, too. Everywhere you go, you find the same stores with the same merchandise--to an extent that was not the case when I was a kid. In some ways it's reassuring to know that when you go to Wichita, KS you'll be able to find the restaurants and drugstores you're used to, but it's disappointing, too. Traveling somewhere new is far less of an adventure. I've noticed this for a long time, so finding this book was gratifying, because it doesn't seem like something that people find worth talking about--beyond occasional news about a plucky town that successfully fights off a new Walmart.
  
  Kingsnorth has plenty of examples of English uniqueness being destroyed by powerful corporate interests, but he also has a few heartening examples of people or communities who have been able to preserve their pub or store or farm. As I read, I was encouraged to be able to think of all the unique businesses, communities, institutions that make Twin Cities and Minnesota culture distinctive. Kingsnorth makes some interesting arguments about needing to develop a sense of Englishness that is based on geography or place rather than biology so that people can find English culture worth defending without fear of being called racist or xenophobic. Although the book is focused only on England (and not Great Britain), its points are easily translatable to other contexts. Kingsnorth is an engaging writer and I heartily recommend Real England.
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  Steve Gillway

  Anybody who has been around and travelled aroung England over the last 20 years will recognise the themes presented here. I know from personal experience - living in a village in Cornwall, where the heart is ripped out by holiday homes - my home village has become a Tescotown where they control all the staples for a captive audience - the changing nature of shops and pubs. And I also realise how complicit I have been in all this. I shop in a supermarket up the road, I used to have a box delivered, but they couldn't come when it was convenient for me, I buy stuff online, and I even stay in holiday cottages. The shame of it all. The writer is right there is something more satisfying in the independent- the unusual. Last weekend I went to a pub- The major's retreat, what a fantastic pub, like going back in time food, beer, atmosphere without a whiff of corporate behaviour. It's all out there and needs nurturing. After all we have got to be the eccentric, individuals the world like to think of us as and try and get away from sheeplike behaviour. Things may be cloned, but we don't have to be clones. Rant over.
  By the way, a great book for giving you the evidence for things you have more than an inkling are going on.
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  Douglas

  This fine book documents and explains how corporate interests and central government with the acquiescence of the urban middle class are taking the heart out of English life: pubs, independent shops, waterways, farms, urban public space, villages, orchards -- all fast vanishing forever. Everybody knows it is happening and people are bewildered by it. This book supplies the grim answers and suggests defence strategies. Globalisation is producing these effects worldwide and nowhere is immune from them. A timely book.
  
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  Sarah

  Quite an inspiration. I don't agree with all of his summing up chapter, but I don't need to do that to appreciate his arguments and conclusions. It's a useful way of looking at the battles we are facing day to day so another weapon to use. Doesn't provide any ready made answers as to the way forward, but then who does? Well worth reading.
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  Norman Fellows

  It's a bit milky. I'm sorry not to be more analytical. But if my fast and authoritative response is not the literary critique you wanted you could do worse than read the sp!ked review by Neil Davenport:
  The reactionary firebrands of ‘Real England’.
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  Olly

  This is a truly brilliant book. Everyone living in England should read it, and then do something about it. I'm going to insist everyone I know reads it.