Last Wolf

by Robert Winder

It is often assumed that the national identity must be a matter of values and ideas. But in Robert Winder's brilliantly-written account it is a land built on a lucky set of natural the island setting that made it maritime; the rain that fed the grass that nourished the sheep that provided the wool, and the wheat fields that provided its cakes and ale. Then came the seams of iron and coal that made it an industrial giant.In Bloody Foreigners Robert Winder told the rich story of immigration to Britain. Now, in The Last Wolf, he spins an English tale. Travelling the country, he looks for its hidden springs not in royal pageantry or politics, but in landscape and history.Medieval monks with their flocks of sheep . . . cathedrals built by wool . . . the first shipment of coal to leave Newcastle . . . marital contests on a village green . . . mock-Tudor supermarkets - the story is studded with these and other English things.And it starts by looking at a very important thing England did not wolves.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, British Literature, Cultural Studies, Historical, Nature

480 pages, Paperback

First published August 3, 2017

About the author

Robert Winder, formerly literary editor of The Independent for five years and Deputy Editor of Granta magazine during the late 1990s, is the author of Hell for Leather, a book about modern cricket, a book about British immigration, and also two novels, as well as many articles and book reviews in British periodicals. Winder is a team member of the Gaieties Cricket Club, whose chairman was Harold Pinter.

Reviews

[Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without a doubt a five star read.
The author admits he is not a professional historian, but the research for this book is breath taking.
The book is a patchwork and yet somehow all holds together - with running themes of water, wool, wheat and weather, along with coal of course.
But it is wool that really runs through the history of England - the wool economy that built English castles, cathedrals, grand houses, abbeys etc, laying down the typical landscape that visitors love to see.
It's a constantly fascinating book, you learn something new on every page, I was forever googling and I was sad to finish it!
Winder admits 'trying to nail down any national character is like trying to grab smoke' but this is a brilliant attempt.

[Paul Trembling · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is Englishness, and where does it come from? Robert Winder thinks it derives, ultimately, from the geography.

He starts from the fact that there are no wolves. There are no wolves because England is part of an island, and therefore it was possible (by about 1290) to largely eradicate wolves. Which in turn made it possible to keep huge flocks of sheep, which produced vast amounts of wool, which made a great deal of money: and Winder goes on to show how that, and other geographical factors (a large amount of rain, for example) have shaped those things that are considered quintessentially 'English'.

He openly admits that he is not a Historian, and that the idea is controversial, but as another non-historian, I found his arguments compelling. But in anycase, much of what I enjoyed about the book wasn't about it's main theme at all, but about all the fascinating little side-trips and anecdotes that kept cropping up throughout. I didn't know, for example, that the phrase 'bring home the bacon' derived from an old village tradition, or that a steeplechase was originally a race between two village churches (many of them built with money made from the wool trade).

His writing style is smooth, well paced and lucid, slightly marred in my opinion by his excessive love of lists, which he produces at every opportunity. Well, to be fair, it's a subject that lends itself to lists. And perhaps it's an English thing to do.

Recommended for anyone who likes a bit of a wander through England.

[Richard Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this a thought provoking and fascinating book. Its essential theme is the underlying link between englishness and the landscape but it goes further and deeper than this into literature, culture and nationalism. It starts in a place that I know - Dunmow (actually Great Dunmow) but few from Essex add the Great - and ranges over the whole country. The book concludes with the aftermath of the referendum and the likelihood of the country drifting into being a theme park - a grim prospect indeed. On a positive note, the author’s learning, style and insights make this a joy to read. His breadth of vision and wide thinking are obvious and I defy anyone to finish the book without being better informed and I hope stimulated by it.

[Julie Bozza · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit disappointing, I'm afraid, despite my current nostalgia for England. Overly long and not entirely convincing, but made some good and interesting points.

[iosephvs bibliothecarivs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended by Paul Kingsnorth, a favourite author.

I liked it, but it wasn't as good as I hoped. A lot of interesting ideas were raised but they weren't quite tied together to my satisfaction. It felt like a long, wandering magazine article.

While reading, I remembered that I had written a short paper on this same subject for my 9th grade geography class decades ago. I should see if I can find it...

#UniteAgainstBookBans #fREADom

[Tim Pendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I had to choose one book to give to a non-English person in order to understand what it is (or was) to be English, I would choose Winder's oblique, selective, non-narrative but informative 'The Last Wolf'.

Winder is highly skilled, a literary artist, in weaving (an appropriate word given the role wool plays in the story) a tale that feeds on itself in choosing as an unusual starting point the 1290s from which key factors in the English experience are drawn - no need for Romans, Saxons or Normans.

He is also has a brilliant ability to tell his story through particular places and how the English use their language colloquially. It is one reason I would recommend the book to foreign tourists who plan to travel away from London - it is a set of recommendations for a visit.

His thesis (not a wholly original and a very old-fashioned one) is that national cultures are in good part defined by their geography - in the English case by such factors as pastureland, the wet weather, the river and sea lanes and the proximity of coal.

From these factors arise a certain sort of character, too complex perhaps to be summarised simply but one in which weather and enterprise emphasise the pragmatic, the balanced, the refusal to leap to extremes but perhaps also what we might call a manipulable strategic passivity.

Whether he is right or wrong in his environmental thesis is not the point (history is not a matter of absolutes in any case). What is the point is that he is plausible. His assessments feel intuitively right. The English (not British) character is unique and is largely shaped by its environment.

The Celtic areas of the British Isles have their own culture. Melvyn Bragg has argued that the North of England has a distinctive culture of its: I am persuaded. There are definitely regional cultures even within the English South, East and West but there is also a distinctive 'Englishness'.

Winder cleverly links even figures of speech and use of proverbs to his grand geographical and environmental themes so that we can see our English minds shaped by the wool industry (making England the Saudi Arabia of its time), sea-going and the weather.

He tells of the two nations that both High Tories and the Labour Party have sought to unite into one but have never succeeded in doing. The origins of class conflict lie in the enclosures as much as the mistreatment of dispossessed farm workers in aristocratic coalfields.

It might be argued (by me) that Britishness is an invention designed for multiple purposes - to permit English domination of the islands, to give cover to Anglo-Saxon globalism and to invent something that can purport to unify the two nations where party politicians could not.

It is true that working class revolt was (in a way not covered by Winder) neutered by a sense of shared superiority within a British Empire. It could also be argued that the growing split between Celts and English and within the 'nation' today are reflections of that ideal collapsing.

There is no Empire, only a State, a State that is dubiously democratic in its practice, a Potemkin Village democracy but one that is reinventing Britishness more to integrate the incredibly large influx of migrants since the 1950s than to reflect the interests of the English.

But do the English (as described by Winder) actually exist any more? The working class component has been treated like dirt by the people in the Labour Party who were supposed to be its advocates and the lower middle class element is angry and resentful about its own representative Party.

To be English now is to have moved from 'feeling like being' the dominant element in the mightiest empire that ever existed (in terms of extent) to being a 'nothing' in the cosmopolitan culture of the capital and the professional classes.

The English supposed to be embarrassed about their imperial past but their only collective crime was complicity in what was then seen as a progressive enterprise. It was what it was but, in fact, the English masses were as neutered by their empire as the Russian workers by the Soviet Empire.

It could be very reasonably argued that the English could be the last colonised people (by the 'British') to be liberated ... except that they will never be liberated as their middle class absorbs itself into a new 'national' identity and the rest remain flaccid and passive.

The English are still dominant in terms of numbers but shattered, fragmented, lost in their individualism and living in a world where every commercial advertisement and every drama is heavily overweighted with the faces and voices of descendants of inward imperial migrants.

Britishness still exists but has been transformed into a new liberal and inclusive culture that often excludes the very nation that inhabits its heartland. Winder is restrained on Brexit (the book was written in 2017) but he is another cosmopolitan liberal depressed by the result.

The people who should really be depressed should be the Brexiters because nothing much has changed. The Brexit voters had one moment of power and then were forced back into impotence by the actual conditions of power in a decaying nation.

A lot has gone wrong since 2016 under perhaps the worst Prime Minister the United Kingdom has ever seen. Johnson was last man standing only because no other respectable politician would respect the democratic choice of the English people and he proved a disaster.

Within a few years, Johnson was pandering to urban liberals to extend his base, Britishness continued to be revised along cosmopolitan lines and the Tory Party presumed on the property fears of the English lower middle class to counter the aspirations of their social inferiors.

In other words, the essence of what it is to be English has not changed - an over-moderate surprisingly emotional at heart but deeply politically passive culture that allows itself to be led down the garden path into unwinnable and exhausting wars (economic if not military).

What has certainly not changed is the 'divide and conquer' strategy of the partnership over power of propertied elites and a self-satisfied liberal intellectual class. The northern working class, betrayed by Labour, were then betrayed by the Tories and have no one to represent them.

The real tragedy is that the English as an indigenous people once did have a fine tradition of revolt in partnership with their Celtic compatriots - from the Chartists through the Labour Movement to the Labour Party before its 'intellectuals' seized power. This was England.

And, as Winder points out, the dynamic of that England engaging with the best of the liberal elite - the art inspired by property, the romanticism of the nineteenth century, the anti-slavery movement, a spirit of enterprise and intellectual enquiry - created something truly great.

It is all over now. Liberals bend over backwards to denigrate the imperial overlay of that fine history, ignore local geography in favour of the 'planet' and of the abstract, disconnect property from the land and treat the mass of the population as inconveniences to be 'managed'.

Still, these thoughts are not those of the book. Winder simply tells the story of a now-dying culture from its emergence with the death of the last wolf that symbolised the creative beginnings of the great medieval wool industry to late nineteenth century industrialisation built on coal.

Winder has nothing to say about the twentieth century and its brutal, futile wars, economic decline and short term neo-liberal experimentation, its mass migration from overseas, its cultural pessimism and its continued if subdued class war. It would be too dark a tale perhaps.

He ends with a short coda that just escapes being another daft whine about Brexit without fully understanding what it was supposed to mean but the real end is over a century ago when everything started to unravel and Englishness became the raw material for nostalgia.

We have a heritage industry now that falsifies the meaning of history through laziness but which creates jobs. We have Downton Abbey, Jane Austen with black actors, patronising moral explanations of art works at the Tate. Englishness no longer moves forward. It is an invented past.

This is a flowing, elegant and rather elegiac narrative but, above all, it is true to its subject, more emotionally true than any number of plodding narratives that lay on more facts to less effect. Though his politics are almost certainly not my politics, this is a very fine book indeed.

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some very engaging discussions and reflections, but the majority of the book is dedicated to a series of tenuous, even spurious, claims founded on a poor understanding of English and European history. The author makes frequent factual errors and historical reasoning that would see undergraduates failed. At one point he suggests that modern English culture's (supposed) emphasis on community and working together has its roots in the need for co-operation in medieval choirs.

The main argument is incredibly inconsistent. One moment he claims that we should not reduce *everything* to geography, and the next he seems to do just that. He claims that historians reject the importance of geography in historical development. This is simply not true. Professional historians are deeply conscious of the role of natural features in the shaping of all aspects of life. They are, however, much more cautious in their assessments, and unwilling to make ridiculous extrapolations like the one mentioned above. One of the problems is that Winder seems to want a controversial thesis even when he doesn't have one. So he exaggerates the evidence and draws conclusions out of all proportion to what is there in order to say something he thinks is original, even when it is complete nonsense. At one point he admits that current historians agree with him on a certain point he's trying to make. Instead of leaving it there, he says that various 'classic' works do not, and goes on to attack them as though he is saying something new, when in fact he is re-iterating (but not actually crediting) current historians. History-writing (and especially popular history-writing) can be worthwhile and meaningful without having to turn everything into an 'original' (and wildly exaggerated) claim. He also doesn't give proper citations for data or quotes, which makes it very difficult if you're interested in either fact-checking or following up on something interesting.

He mentions the medieval expulsion of the Jews several times, but brushes over it in a way that is – at best – dismissive. Honestly, it feels very troubling to treat such cruelty so blithely.

All of that being said, there are a lot of interesting observations and personal reflections. These are often quite generic and standard fare for this kind of writing, but they are mostly enjoyable. It certainly would have been a much more enjoyable and engaging book if it had focused on these, rather than spurious contrarianism. An accessible book on the role of geography in shaping English life would have been a welcome addition to current popular history-writing. Instead, we get a mishmash of untenable speculation, exaggeration, and inaccuracies.

I found myself rolling my eyes at this more times than I can remember ever having rolled my eyes at a book.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The summary of this would be how the natural geography of England has shaped the country's history, but that doesn't really do it justice. It was easily readable, was detailed without descending into waffle or too much repetition, and covered a lot without being too long. I wasn't a big fan of the authors's voice however, which grated on occasion.

In general, Winder started off by discussing a present day English town or village that appears to be stuck in the past, and looked back at the wider history that explained it, starting with the eradication of wolves which allowed sheep to graze in peace. Sheep and wool did play an incredibly large part in this book, and for a national history that seems to generally start with the industrial revolution, I found it quite interesting - England (this was a book on England, not Britain) was in many senses a world power well before industry took over. Later chapters looked at the church, mills, bread, coal and gothic architecture, amongst others.

As this was a geographical study rather than a political one, the monarchs were generally left out of the story altogether, as with parliament (except to discuss the building itself). This definitely gave the book a fresh perspective, and the author did allow himself to question how valid some of his conclusions were, notably on the alternative idea that capital led to the industrial revolution, not the fortunate location of coal. This was a particularly valid challenge when he later discussed cotton, a raw material imported rather than produced, but still central to the economy. However, even allowing for the capital theory, this would still explain why the country looks as it does and wouldn't render the book pointless, if only for the many prompts for me to check Wikipedia for interesting places.

The only major black mark for me was the author's love of lists, words separated by commas, things in a category, items, articles, objects, applicable examples. These occurred frequently, regularly, often, plentifully, and were really annoying. And the problem was that once you've spotted it, you notice it every time.

There was a touch of patriotism in reading this and the same book about France would probably not hold my attention, being unfamiliar with the equivalents of Castle Combe or Preston, but I thought this was a fascinating book that didn't feel as though it was well over 400 pages long. And the cover for the paperback version is utterly brilliant.

[Christina Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating insight into how the death of the last wolf created the conditions necessary for England to become a massive sheep farm, accumulate wealth and lay the foundations for the Industrial Revolution.
I was fascinated by all the snippets of history (especially in the footnotes!), where one small change had large repercussions, and how the geography of this island has had such an impact on the history and nature of the people living here. Highly recommended!

[Stoic_quin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s an interesting cultural history - but I think doesn’t quite make the claim for ‘English identity’ fully. The traits here are shared with other countries - most notably other parts of the British isles. I suspect that there is something to do with the war of the roses / civil war that underpins a lot of this, but is largely omitted. Still worth a read despite that

[Harry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unusually, The Last Wolf is a book that gets better the more of it you read, all the way up to the final line which probably should've come in the first few pages of the text: "what is history but geography over time?"

Winder's project is to demonstrate a thesis closely akin to that of Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel and Crosby's Ecological Imperialism: that the geographical inheritance of a people and civilisation, in this case England, is the strongest indicator of their destiny. Englishness, Winder suggests (at some length), is the product of England's geology and meteorology, not of any magic feature of English blood.

The problem with Winder's argument is twofold: on the one hand, it's blindingly obvious that England is England because it's England. If England were France it wouldn't be England. On the other, blinding obviousness aside, Winder does too little work testing as opposed to simply asserting his positions: while I'm more than happy to accept that English geography is a powerful force in English identity, I'm not sure I believe that the voluminous English rainfall has been the primary sculptor of English literature. Forces (and examples) outside of England are notably thin on the ground. To some extent this is understandable given the text's conceit: Winder is seeking the English roots of Englishness, but at times it gives his argument the feeling of drawing a rather long bow. Why, for example, is the Irish "national character" not soggy with rain just as English writing is? Or if it is in what ways—geographical or otherwise—are the Irish different from the English at all? What are the key differences in the geographies of England and Denmark, say, or of Normandy or Galicia? Without counterexamples to define the contours of his position Winder undermines the credibility of his central argument.

With that being said, The Last Wolf is an able and highly readable history of England (which, really, is what the book sets out to be), with an added dollop of reflection on the meaning of England within a broader "British" identity threatened by Brexit and separatist agitation. The first third of the book moves slowly (the amount of mileage Winder gets out of "medieval England produced wool" beggars belief), but momentum grows once we're past the Tudors. It's lost again once we hit the late nineteenth century and wade through several closing chapters on literature, art and architecture. Winder's point about the English being concerned with the past is another difficult one to buy: Rome and Istanbul are virtually open-air museums, for instance, and Spain has legislation on the interpretation of its medieval history.

Nevertheless, Winder has here produced a profoundly English text about Englishness and the history of England. Peculiar omissions like the Reformation (which of course was imported from the Continent) and the far-reaching two-way impacts of colonialism make the book seem disjointed occasionally, but only add to its essential Englishness. The Last Wolf insists, evocatively and for a little longer yet, that England is indeed a precious stone set in the silver sea.

[Zandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars. It is overly long and has quite a bit of repetition and waffle. But I'm so very glad I could not sleep one night, and pulled it randomly off the book shelves. It is a fascinating companion to all the Disraeli I have been reading recently. Like Disraeli, Winder thinks the roots of Englishness lie in the time of the Plantagenets, the time when England first gained great wealth and a strong community of people focused village life around a Church and the green, where the sheep, the source of all the wealth, grazed. Winder celebrates the idea that the medieval system allowed for social mobility, and small holders and villagers had independence and the chance to make money. It was not necessary simply to inherit an estate to prosper and achieve success. The great wealth gained from wool was not just for private enjoyment, but benefactors built magnificent Churches, Cathedrals, schools, and funded kings.

Instead of the 'raw energy of capitalism' in the Eighteenth Century being the driver of social mobility, Winder says it only impoverished laborers, deprived them of their livelihoods, and produced the camaraderie that was essential for collective action to succeed. The working classes, and class war, were created. Like Disraeli, Winder points to the self-serving greed of a narrow number of extremely wealthy land holders who dominated parliament and ruled only in their own interests. After wool first brought massive wealth to the nation: 'a few noble hands created pools of capital that were eventually invested in the next phase of commercial enterprise: manufacturing, slavery, industry and empire.' Yet with capitalism exists a nostalgia for the middle ages that has resonated through the centuries influencing our notions of art, architecture, religion and education.

As an Australian whose interest in wool comes partly from the knowledge that my grandparents were successful sheep farmers, I found it fascinating that Winder includes in his book an account of John Macarthur establishing sheep farms in Australia and so founding 'a new agricultural power in the world.' All very interesting, but I still wonder why the English let Australians make all the money from wool at this stage?

[John Kaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nicely written: it starts very well, and continues well, until we reach the industrial revolution. After that, the book starts to meander, the thesis starts to become stretched and Brexit looms large.

His synthesis of reading and research works, for the most part, very well, and I enjoyed the writing until the last hundred pages or so. The early emphasis on wool and its ramifications (!) was very entertaining, and a useful antidote to the usual battles ans kings English history narrative. I haven't tackled Robert Tombs yet (put off by its length, as ever), but I'd be interested to compare.

[Mr I M Wood · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing

Great start. Intriguing premise but ultimately disappointing. His assertions are often repetitive and sometimes unsubstantiated. For example, his assertion that part of the Viking's motivation for coming to England was to get soft bread is presented as a fact with no supporting evidence.
Either his sense of humour is too subtle for me to appreciate or this is poor scholarship.
I wanted to love this book as its premise was so fascinating.
And finally .......are some of the book's Amazon reviews suspiciously repetitive and brief?

[Kathryn Bullen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This started well but soon became a bit generalistic and lacking in focus. There are some interesting nuggets, but the accuracy is sometimes questionable. I started to be concerned when I read the author's comment that Laxton was the only place where open fields still exist - what about the Isle of Axholme? When he said that the word 'garth' comes from Old English I really started to wonder about his research - it's definitely from the Old Norse. Perhaps this was too ambitious a project - enjoyable in parts, but treat the factual assertions with caution.

[Ameet Shah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly good book on a topic that Winder is truly passionate about. Loved it. And as someone who came to England when I was 9 and loving Britain, it was an incredible exposition of what England means to all of us and where it comes from

[Leilani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting, but quite heavy and a bit too long for me personally

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastically different take on the history of England based on geography and geology. Lovely story style to explaining why things the way they are in this country.

[Liam Agate · Rating 3 out of 5]

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[Charles Cordell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant thesis on the essential ingredients that fostered a great Britain - a rainy island with good grass, wheat, coal and iron - and no wolves. A really good read.

[Steve Ripley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting at times. A little bit too long, could have done with a touch more editing.
Everything dates back to 1290!

[David Cheshire · Rating 5 out of 5]

4Robert Winder is a fount of originalty. This is simply the best book on ""Britishness" you will find. It's quirky but grounded, lively but deeply researched. It has profound insights and also flights of fancy. No book will ever nail this topic but this gets the closest ive seen. It avoids sentimentality but risks emotion. I would recommend any book he wrote but this one's a banger.
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