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Rural Rides (Penguin Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: William Cobbett
Creator: Ian Dyck
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Book
List Price: £12.99
Buy New: £6.68
You Save: £6.31 (49%)
New (17) Used (6) from £6.68
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 20709
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 576
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5 x 1.5
ISBN: 0140435794
Dewey Decimal Number: 808
EAN: 9780140435795
ASIN: 0140435794
Publication Date: September 27, 2001
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Revolution by a Revolutionary August 26, 2008
Ron Strutt (Surrey, UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
We think that recent decades have seen the greatest possible changes that mankind could possibly go through. We're wrong.
William Cobbett lived through an era that was breathtaking in the change that it experienced. The agrarian economy that had sustained the country for centuries was being pushed aside by the industrial revolution, indeed, agriculture was about to experience deep decline. In politics, the loss of the American colonies - the first step in the end of the Empire - still haunted the country. The age of patrician rule was about to yield - if no more than that - with the Reform Act of 1832.
Cobbett exemplifies the contradictions of this age - passionately opposed to 'modern' economics, yet deriding of the 'old ways', patrician yet a powerful advocate of the enhanced franchise.
Cobbett gives us a record of an important turning point in our country's history and sheds light upon the causes and impacts of this period of change. He offers us lessons that may be of equal relevance in our own period of immense change.
Apart from that, Cobbett paints us a picture of a landscape that is, on the one hand, so very familiar to us, but on the other, totally alien.
However, the editorial contribution of this version of his work is poor. That anyone in the early 21st century should understand the intricacies of early 19th century politics is asking too much, and the vital explanation and understanding that the average paperback reader needs is entirely missing.
 Cobbett Country February 5, 2004
John D. Andrews (grantham, lincs United Kingdom)
39 out of 39 found this review helpful
This is a wonderful book, written by a man whose passions are plain for all to see. His obvious love for the English countryside and the people who work it are equalled only by his bitter contempt for those who rule. The descriptions of the places he visits are beautifully observed and have you fumbling for your roadmap with an itching desire to go and see them for yourself. He views the land he passes through farmers eyes, and the work is somehow elevated by this injection of knowledge and experience. People with radical tendencies will sympathise with much of the political comment that he makes and wonder if he would think much has changed in the almost two hundred years that has elapsed since he wrote this book. I would like to have seen more editorial explanations of many of the terms and expressions he uses which are now out of use.
 VERY political writing November 8, 2003
3 out of 55 found this review helpful
This book got a bit too political for my tastes. It's worth reading from an academic point of view, but I don't think it's the sort of book that you take with you on your holiday to the seaside. If you're familiar with some of the places Cobbett mentions in his travels, it can be interesting to compare them as they are now to the way he describes them. Otherwise, it's probably not a very 'fun' read.
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