Placeholder text

Go to cart

Violent Waters

By Elly Robson Dezateux

Violent Waters

By Elly Robson Dezateux

0 - Default Title
Description
How were environments and politics remade by sovereigns, floods, mapmakers, migrants, rioters, and writers during wetland improvement projects in early modern England? Violent Waters examines flagship ventures which promised to transform unruly fenland fringes into orderly terrain at the heart of national power and productivity. In practice, these projects sparked constitutional controversy, new floods, and huge riots. The first state-led project in Hatfield Level brought local, national, and transnational interests into contact and conflict for almost a century. Elly Robson Dezateux traces the environmental politics that emerged as water and land were constructed and contested, both mentally and materially. These disputes pivoted on urgent questions about risk and justice, which became entangled in civil war conflict and exposed the limits of central authority and technology. Ultimately, improvement was destabilised by a lack of legitimacy and the dynamism of local custom as a method of environmental management and collective action. Wetland communities, as much as improvers and sovereigns, remade the terrain of politics and the future of the fens.
Product details
Number of Pages:
388
Release Date:
2025-11-25
Publication Date:
2025-11-25
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
1009678906
ISBN13:
9781009678902
Weight:
711 g
Height:
157 cm
Width:
235 cm
Thickness:
25 cm
Buy on Amazon
Currently sold out