George Ewart Evans's Books

Where Beards Wag All

By: George Ewart Evans

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From his landmark study of rural life in East Anglia, Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay (1956), George Ewart Evans set about, in a series of books, unveiling the sylvan round of myth and merriment, plenty and hardship, that informed the traditions and texture of country living. Core to his chronicles is the oral tradition, echoing through the years, and it is this that he concentrates upon in Where Beards Wag All (1970). Here are the memories, unmediated and raw, of the craftsman, the drover, the marshman - a chorus to the seasons' constant turn. And it is by no means an idyll they describe: thrift and want, poverty and subjection are often their lyric. The depression of the 1930s is vividly brought to life, and a particularly affecting section details the migration of East Anglian farm-workers to the maltings of Burton-on-Trent. Sympathetically illustrated by David Gentleman, and containing fascinating period photographs, Where Beards Wag All is a touching and faithful portrait of the countryside of fading memory.

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Page Count

312

Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571244319

ISBN 13

9780571244317

The Horse in the Furrow

By: George Ewart Evans

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The Horse in the Furrow

By: George Ewart Evans

The Suffolk Punch - that sturdy, compact draft horse of noble ancestry - was, until mechanisation, the powerhouse of the East Anglian farming community. In The Horse in the Furrow (1960), renowned social historian George Ewart Evans explores this potent symbol of a bygone era, and the complex network - farmer, horseman, groom, smith, harness-maker and tailor - which surrounded it. Evans charts a fascinating course, demonstrating the connectedness of husbandry, custom and dialect, and arguing for an organic, inclusive study of these aspects of rural life. In particular, the section on folklore sheds light on some of the most obscure practices, with the Punch standing proudly at its centre. With beautiful illustrations by Charles Tunnicliffe, The Horse in the Furrow is an engaging and subtle portrait of an animal at the heart of its community

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Page Count

239

Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571286887

ISBN 13

9780571286881

The Crooked Scythe

An Anthology of Oral History

By: George Ewart Evans

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The Crooked Scythe

An Anthology of Oral History

By: George Ewart Evans

George Ewart Evans was one of the pioneers of oral history. This anthology is drawn from his writings about the memories of men and women of a past era -- farm labourers, shepherds, horsemen, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, sailors, fishermen, miners, maltsters, domestic servants and many others. Ewart Evans gathered this unique testimony in rural East Anglia in the 1950s, just as mechanisation was taking over every aspect of life, preserving a wealth of human history and language in this fascinating and often moving anthology.

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Page Count

224

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Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571340806

ISBN 13

9780571340804

The Days That We Have Seen

By: George Ewart Evans

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The Days That We Have Seen

By: George Ewart Evans

George Ewart Evans's pioneer work in oral history has been widely acclaimed; the importance of this source of historical knowledge has long been recognized both in this country and the United States. In The Days That We Have Seen (Faber, 1975) he shows the way in which oral history works and illustrates his point by printing some exceptionally valuable recorded talks by old men and women in East Anglian villages, whose tools and customs - and indeed whose ways of speech, which often survived from the times of Shakespeare and even Chaucer - repeated what had been familiar to many generations before them. The use of common land hardly changed for centuries. Who today understands the importance of hay in the farm economy, when we are concerned with a different sort of fuel? The author also investigates the activities of those who went to sea: the herring industry, farm workers who became sailors after the harvest, and migratory labour from Scotland. As fascinating to the general reader as it is valuable to the historian, the book is imaginatively illustrated throughout with photographs and black and white line drawings.

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Page Count

242

Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571243800

ISBN 13

9780571243808

The Pattern Under the Plough

By: George Ewart Evans

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The Pattern Under the Plough

By: George Ewart Evans

Following his two classics, Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay and The Horse in the Furrow, renowned oral historian George Ewart Evans continues his study of the vanishing customs, working habits and rich language of the farming communities of East Anglia with The Pattern Under the Plough (Faber, 1966). Although based on East Anglia, this book was and remains of wider interest, for - as the author pointed out at the time - similar changes were occurring in North America, and also happening with remarkable speed in Africa. In chronicling the old culture George Ewart Evans has taken its two chief aspects, the home and the farm. He describes the house with its fascinating constructional details, the magic invoked for its protection, the mystique of the hearth, the link of the bees with the people of the house, and some of their fears and pre-occupations. Among the chapters on the farm is one of Evans's most original pieces of research: the description of the secret horse societies. Beautifully illustrated by David Gentleman, this book is important not only for the material it reveals about the past but for the implications for present-day society. 'As real (and as valuable) as the evidence unearthed by the spadework of archaeology.' Observer

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Page Count

208

Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571286879

ISBN 13

9780571286874

The Pattern Under the Plough

By: George Ewart Evans

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The Pattern Under the Plough

By: George Ewart Evans

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208

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Faber & Faber

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ISBN 10

0571286879

ISBN 13

9780571286874

The Horse in the Furrow

By: George Ewart Evans

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The Horse in the Furrow

By: George Ewart Evans

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239

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Faber & Faber

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ISBN 10

0571286887

ISBN 13

9780571286881

Horse Power and Magic

By: George Ewart Evans

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Horse Power and Magic

By: George Ewart Evans

The pioneering oral historian, George Ewart Evans, began to record the farming ways of East Anglia in the 1950s by listening to old men and women whose memories went back more than fifty or sixty years. Many were agricultural labourers, born before the turn of the century, who had worked on farms before the arrival of mechanisation. It was assumed at that time that horses would soon disappear from the farms, and that this was the last chance of recording the part they had played for centuries. It later became clear that this forecast was too pessimistic and in Horse Power and Magic (Faber, 1979) Ewart Evans describes in fascinating detail some important farms where horses continued to be beneficially used more than thirty years later. He discovered that the traditions of the older horsemen had not died out but had been passed on, in only slightly attenuated form, to a younger generation keen to farm with horses, proving that the day of the heavy horse was by no means over. He also describes vividly the ways of horse-tamers whose skills had a touch of 'magic' about them. 'Taking his works a whole, there is no doubt that George Ewart Evans will survive as a fascinating pioneer of the extra-academic recording of human history...he has found a dimension all his own. This is indeed the very stuff of history.' Sunday Times

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Page Count

220

Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571287069

ISBN 13

9780571287062

Marriage Customs of the World [2 volumes]

An Encyclopedia of Dating Customs and Wedding Traditions [2 volumes]

By: George P. Monger

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Marriage Customs of the World [2 volumes]

An Encyclopedia of Dating Customs and Wedding Traditions [2 volumes]

By: George P. Monger

This book presents a comprehensive overview of global courtship and marriage customs, from ancient history to contemporary society, demonstrating the vast differences as well as the similarities across all of human culture. This second edition of Marriage Customs of the World examines historical context, social significance, and current trends and controversies of matrimony in the Western world as well as other cultures. Apart from detailing the ceremonies from specific countries, the book identifies specific elements of the wedding event and discusses them in a comparative manner, showcasing the similarities across cultures. The new content in this work includes additional information on courtship and how future spouses are found in other cultures; marriage in art, cinema, theater, and poetry; wedding bands; forced marriages and shotgun weddings; New Year's weddings; legislation regarding marriage; and engagement practices. Entries carried over from the first edition have been revised and updated as well. With its broad scope and consideration of contemporary issues alongside historical information, this work will be ideal for high school and undergraduate students; scholars of anthropology, social studies, and history; and general readers.

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Page Count

813

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

1598846647

ISBN 13

9781598846645

Meadows

By: George Peterken

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Meadows

By: George Peterken

The second volume of a major new series of books on British natural history. Meadows provide one of the most wide-ranging and eloquent treatments of this most quintessential British habitat. Yet the flower-rich hay meadows that have inspired writers and artists for hundreds of years have almost disappeared from our countryside. In this exceptional work, George Peterken, one of our most respected ecologists, brings together years of research and discovery from his travels across Britain and Europe, as well as an understanding borne out of caring for his own meadows, to produce a book that will put this often misunderstood habitat back in the public's eye. Filled with beautiful images of meadows and their denizens, this is a book everyone with an interest in this iconic habitat will want to own.

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504

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Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

147295470X

ISBN 13

9781472954701

Conversing by Signs

Poetics of Implication in Colonial New England Culture

By: Robert Blair St. George

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Conversing by Signs

Poetics of Implication in Colonial New England Culture

By: Robert Blair St. George

The people of colonial New England lived in a densely metaphoric landscape--a world where familiars invaded bodies without warning, witches passed with ease through locked doors, and houses blew down in gusts of angry, providential wind. Meaning, Robert St. George argues, was layered, often indirect, and inextricably intertwined with memory, apprehension, and imagination. By exploring the linkages between such cultural expressions as seventeenth-century farmsteads, witchcraft narratives, eighteenth-century crowd violence, and popular portraits of New England Federalists, St. George demonstrates that in early New England, things mattered as much as words in the shaping of metaphor. These forms of cultural representation--architecture and gravestones, metaphysical poetry and sermons, popular religion and labor politics--are connected through what St. George calls a 'poetics of implication.' Words, objects, and actions, referentially interdependent, demonstrate the continued resilience and power of seventeenth-century popular culture throughout the eighteenth century. Illuminating their interconnectedness, St. George calls into question the actual impact of the so-called Enlightenment, suggesting just how long a shadow the colonial climate of fear and inner instability cast over the warm glow of the early national period.

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Page Count

481

Publisher

Univ of North Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807864714

ISBN 13

9780807864715

Book's by George Ewart Evans

Where Beards Wag All

Where Beards Wag All

The Horse in the Furrow

The Horse in the Furrow

The Crooked Scythe

The Crooked Scythe

The Days That We Have Seen

The Days That We Have Seen

The Pattern Under the Plough

The Pattern Under the Plough

The Pattern Under the Plough

The Pattern Under the Plough

The Horse in the Furrow

The Horse in the Furrow

Horse Power and Magic

Horse Power and Magic

Marriage Customs of the World [2 volumes]

Marriage Customs of the World [2 volumes]

Meadows

Meadows

Conversing by Signs

Conversing by Signs

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