Devon and Its People

by W.G. Hoskins

paperback history of Devon

176 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1959

Reviews

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the work of Hoskins in general but hadn't read this one before. Very approachable history and description of Devon, with something for anyone interested in landscape history, geography, or local history (and Devon, of course). There are one or two places in which knowledge has perhaps been superseded since this was written in 1959, such as the possibility, raised by the discovery of a Bronze Age shipwreck, that tin was in fact being exported from Devon much earlier than Hoskins allows, but with his enthusiasm for new knowledge I think he would have welcomed this. There are a few funny quirks - the "savage extortion" of taxation which ruins all our lives (in 1959), really? (with no mention of the free at point of use healthcare paid for by taxation, but which would surely have been beneficial to earlier generations in the tax-free golden age!) He doesn't mention the cholera outbreaks in the big cities, either (Plymouth was badly affected in 1849), unless I missed it. He is a wonderful and influential writer in his field, and the individual quirks are fun (the paper cover of my copy, which probably dates from the 1960s reprint, says that he has retired from academic life partly in order to write the books which can't be done "in a modern university"). A must for all Devonians!