Yorkshire

Yorkshire has been described as God's Own Country and 'a continent unto itself'. It is southern Britain in microcosm, where mountain, plain, coast, downs, fen and heath lie side by side. In Yorkshire, Richard Morris looks at how it took shape, as a place and as an idea. He weaves history, travelogue and ecology to explore this terrain in legend, literature and popular regard.

Morris considers different ways to come to Yorkshire - in a poem, through an image, on holiday. We descend into the county's netherworld of caves and mines, face episodes at once brave and dark, like the part played by Whitby and Hull in emptying Arctic waters of whales, or the re-routing of rivers and destruction of Yorkshire's fens. We are introduced to discoverers and inventions, enter vanished kingdoms, meet people who came and went, encounter real and fabled heroes, and discover why, from the Iron Age to the Cold War, Yorkshire was such a key place in times of tension and struggle.

In this wide-ranging, lyrical history Richard Morris finds that for as far back as we can look God's Own Country has been a region of unique presence with links around the world.