This energetically delivered thesis on how England is gradually changing in the face of corporate homogeneity comes as close as any recent book has to defining modern-day "Englishness". Kingsnorth, an environmentalist, travels around the country, visiting towns undergoing change and meeting inhabitants clinging to traditional values. He makes a compelling case for upholding the virtues of family-run shops, community pubs and so on in the apparently inevitable face of market-driven change. Although he skirts more controversial issues - hunting is only mentioned in passing - this remains a readable call to arms, in the tradition of other national polemicists such as Cobbett, Priestley and Orwell. AL