Oliver Rackham, historian of the British countryside

A Classic -- everyone should read it

I just learned (I'm somewhat behind the times) that Oliver Rackham died on February 12.  Among many other things, he was a remarkable historian of the British countryside, who deserved to be better known among environmental historians.  I still keep coming back to two aspects of his work, about the history of ecology, and the interpretation of landscapes.

Whenever I've studied the history of British ecology I've drawn on his knowledge of local woods and wood management in the various regions of Britain.  When I was trying to understand how British ecological research related to local nature conservation, his The History of the Countryside was essential to understanding practices such as coppicing (an ancient method of forest cutting that's not done much in North America).

And when I teach landscape interpretation (in our campus nature reserves), I ask my students to read his "Rural Detection" chapter in his The Illustrated History of the Countryside.  Especially his seven rules for writing "pseudo-history".  Pseudo-history, he explains, is made up of "factoids".  A factoid "looks like a fact, is respected as a fact, and has all the properties of a fact except that it is not true."

So here are Rackham's seven rules for doing pseudo-history:

1. Stick to the documents and do no fieldwork.

2. Rely on contemporary documents of a generalized kind � the things that learned writers said about the landscape � instead of the year-to-year records of individual fields, woods and rivers.

3. Take the documents at face value: for example, interpret medieval laws as if they were intended to stop people from doing things.

4. Copy what other scholars have said, rather than going back to the original evidence.

5. Treat animals and plants as 'environment'; as scenery in the theatre rather than as actors in the play.

6. Generalize: blame every deserted settlement in the Scottish Highlands on the infamous Highland Clearances.

7. Have an answer for everything, and never admit you don't know.

Don't these say just about everything you need to know about doing environmental history?