This week the Society publishes the latest title in its New Historical Perspectives series: Waterscapes: Reservoirs, Environment and Identity in Modern England and Wales, by Andrew McTominey.
The building of reservoirs in England and Wales was key to urban growth across the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, with the management of waterworks projects closely tied to the social and economic fortunes of rural areas, as well as the treatment of urban populations.
Drawing on methods from environmental history, cultural history and historical geography, Waterscapes explores the multiple and long-term impacts of reservoir construction and management in rural England and Wales from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. It examines how reservoirs transformed the rural environment, the management of the urban-rural hinterland, the development of cultural landscapes, the expansion of novel leisure activities, and the social impact on local communities.
Andrew’s new book Incorporates case studies from Leeds’s Washburn Valley, Liverpool’s Vyrnwy Reservoir and Birmingham’s Elan Reservoir. It offers a comparative approach, highlighting commonalities and differences in waterworks management across the country, thereby transforming our understanding of the national water industry during this period, contemporary attitudes to the environment, and the identities – civic, gender and professional – that were intertwined with these waterscapes.
Waterscapes is published in Open Access in pdf download and Manifold reading editions and in hard and paperback print (£24.99).
To accompany publication, on 28 August Andrew also writes about his new book for the Society’s blog, Historical Transactions.
Our thanks to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, for supporting Open Access publication of this title in the New Historical Perspectives series.
About the ‘New Historical Perspectives’ book series
Waterscapes is the 23rd titles in the Society’s New Historical Perspectives series for early career historians, published with University of London Press and supported by the Institute of Historical Research and Economic History Society.
The series publishes monographs and edited collections by early career historians on all chronologies and histories, worldwide. Contracted authors receive mentoring and an author workshop to develop their manuscript before its final submission.
All titles in the series are published in hard and paperback print and Open Access (as pdf downloads and Manifold reading editions) with costs covered by University of London Press, the Royal Historical Society and partners. Forthcoming titles include:
- Atlantic Isles: Travel and Identity in the British and Irish West, 1880–1940, by Gareth Roddy (October 2025)
- Forging Fraternity in Late Medieval Society. The Palmers’ Guild of Ludlow, by Rachael Harkes (November 2025)
For more on current and forthcoming titles in the series, for 2025, please see here.
HEADER IMAGE: Ladybower Reservoir, Upper Derwent Valley, Derbyshire, UK, iStock Alexey_Fedoren