Sub-titled 'The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain', much has been written about Britain's trailblazing post-1975 Privatisation Programme, but the biggest privatisation of them all has until now escaped scrutiny - the privatisation of land. Since Margaret Thatcher took power in 1979, and hidden from the public eye, about 10% of the entire British land mass including some of its most valuable real estate has passed from public to private hands. Forest land, defence land, health service land and above all else local authority land for farming and school sports, for recreation and housing has been sold off en masse. Why? How? And with what social, economic and political consequences? This book is the first ever study of this profoundly significant phenomenon, setting it as a centrepiece of neoliberalism in Britain as a successor programme to the original 18th century enclosures. With more public land still slated for disposal, the book identifies the stakes and asks what if anything can and should be done. 'Necessary reading for anyone who wants to know where ruling-class power comes from, and how to take it back.' - Owen Hatherley. The economic geographer looks at the whole of Britain's 80,823 square miles. 362pp, paperback.

The updated edition, this is an excellent field guide to the mammals of Great Britain and Ireland beginning with an overview and history, biology and life cycle. Organised by Terrestrial Mammals like squirrels and dormice, beavers, hedgehogs and bats, wild cats and foxes, deer, pigs and wild boar, even reindeer and introduced ephemerals like the Siberian chipmunk, striped skunk and Asian short-clawed otter. In Marine Mammals there are seals, whales, dolphins, beluga and narwhal, the tusked males of which are unmistakable but there have been no confirmed sightings in Britain since 1949. For each entry there are details of length, height, blow, dive sequence, behaviour, weight, breathing behaviour, habitat, population and status, food and signs including tracks, droppings and nests and coloured distribution map. 126 mammal species recorded, 500 superb colour photos. Stunning colour photography in this heavyweight large softback, 328pp.

England's second city has been a manufacturing powerhouse since Anglo-Saxon times, yet it is not a port and has no local mineral deposits of the kind that powered the Industrial Revolution. For its expansion into a major city, Birmingham relied on the talents and hard work of communities of migrants, first people from neighbouring villages and then in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from the other side of the world. The borough rental, or list of tenants, from 1296 is an important document showing that two-thirds of the early workforce came from a ten-mile radius. The 19th century saw economic migration from Scotland and Ireland, and also the arrival of Russian Jews and Romanies escaping persecution. In the 20th century there were new communities of Yemenis, Chinese, Poles, Ukrainians, West Indians of the Windrush generation, Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. This comprehensive history, published to mark the 850th anniversary of Henry II's grant of a market charter to the town in 1166, starts with recent developments in the archaeology of the medieval and Tudor periods. The "City of a Thousand Trades", to quote the 18th century politician Edmund Burke, emerged in the centuries after 1700 as it became a centre of industry and commerce. There were no guilds to create a closed shop, and the freedom allowed to Nonconformists in religion resulted in leaders such as John Bright and Joseph Chamberlain, radicals with a strong philanthropic drive. The first navigable canal was opened in 1766, giving the city access to overseas trade. There has been debate about the involvement of slaves in local industry, but their numbers were probably small. A high wage economy and opportunities for women and children attracted people to the town. Metalworking, from guns to jewellery to railway carriages, was a speciality, and the 20th century saw Birmingham's further development as Britain's motor city. 334pp, timeline, population figures, superb colour photos.
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Despite his surname, Andrew Baker is a dedicated and discerning consumer of cake and Publishing Editor of the Telegraph. He takes cakes very seriously. We hold strong opinions about how to bake a brownie with the perfect squidge, the correct proportions of icing to sponge, and whether it's jam or cream first on our scones. Now thanks to the success of a certain TV baking show, our flirtation with flour, fruit and frosting has become a full-blown love affair. Travelling the country from Dundee to the Isle of Wight, Andrew Baker serves up the story of our national obsession with cake, one slice at a time. On his greedy quest he seeks to discover the True Slice of each iconic cake and we join him eating sponge sandwiched with jam and cream at Queen Victoria's holiday home at Osborne House, discovering the illustrious yet scandal-filled history of the Battenberg's saccharine squares, and learn how a caterpillar enrobed in chocolate became a party-starting birthday centrepiece. From King Alfred's oat cakes to the River Café's revered Chocolate Nemesis, here are wedding cakes, ginger cakes, cupcakes, a honey cake and the Bake-Off Showstopper and moreish more. Includes recipes for example for a Red Velvet or Cheesecake Layer, buttercream and decoration for a 21st century wedding cake. 312pp, line art and crumbs of knowledge interspersed in features.

A stunningly beautiful visual timeline which begins with Alfred the Great in the 9th century, journeying through to the 21st century with objects which best represent the kings and queens who have ruled. Crowns, statues and coins immediately spring to mind but so too do golden coaches, castles, paintings, flags, letters, jewellery and much more besides: even the occasional photograph becomes the object itself in the desire to tell the intriguing royal tale. One of the most precious and popular exhibits in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum is King Alfred?s Jewelled Aestel, one of the most significant ancient royal relics ever discovered, a tear drop-shaped piece of jewellery found in 1693 in a ploughed up field in Somerset not far from where Alfred the Great in 878 took refuge from the Vikings. Made of rock crystal embellished with enamel and gold, the goldsmithing is so intricate that it is believed to have been the work of a master craftsman. At the base of the piece is a dragon-like head and the cloisonné enamelled character was originally thought to depict Christ, but it may depict sight as it shows a man holding plants. There are illuminated manuscripts, the Edgar Window in Bath Abbey depicting a coronation in glass, the Abingdon Chronicle, a mortuary chest in Winchester Cathedral, Edward the Confessor's Shrine at Westminster Abbey, the Round Tower at Windsor Castle created for William the Conqueror's 11th century fortress, the Rufus Stone in the New Forest marking the spot where William II was fatally wounded by an arrow, the Royal Seal of Approval, ornate gates and castles, crosses and tombs, a monument to the popular Scottish King James IV, and exquisite miniatures of Elizabeth I by Nicholas Hilliard set in an enamelled golden lockets embellished with diamonds and rubies. 216 magnificent pages from Pitkin publishers, 19 x 24cm. Over 100 colour images.