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‘Both dynamite and medicine’ AMY-JANE BEER

‘It couldn’t be more relevant’ JAMES O’BRIEN

‘Timely and rousing’ THE TIMES

The lie of the land: that Britain’s landowners care for the countryside.

Our landowning elite are paid billions of taxpayer pounds to be good stewards. But these same landowners have carelessly trampled over our best-loved landscapes, leaving the rivers polluted, fenlands drained, and moorlands burned.

Guy Shrubsole has travelled across Britain to expose the lie and meet the communities fighting back to restore our lost landscapes. This is a bold, shared vision for our nation’s wild places, and how we can treat them with the awe and care they deserve.

Publisher Review

‘The unjust impositions of historic land ownership blight all our lives – here Guy shows why’ Chris Packham

‘Exhilarating, insightful and bristling with rightful indignation’ Lee Schofield

‘A heartfelt, historically resonant call to reject the myth that private landownership delivers good stewardship of nature’ Corinne Fowler

‘If you care about our environment, read this book’ Sir John Lawton CBE FRS

‘This book beautifully subverts the central orthodoxy of England, that owning land is the only way to care for it’ Nick Hayes

‘Guy Shrubsole asserts the right of the majority to engage in what happens to land. As England struggles with its post-Brexit identity, the lie of the land matters deeply’ Tim Lang

‘At once shocking and comforting, scathing and uplifting. A book on this subject shouldn’t be so readable. A triumph’ Sophie Pavelle

‘Shrubsole has the belly fire of a campaigner but the precision of an historian.’ Roger Mortlock, Chief Executive of CPRE

‘Unlike earlier revolutionaries, this Guy has a smart, peaceful and practical plan for how we can turn this land into our land’ Patrick Barkham

‘Who really cares for the countryside? Guy does. His articulate fervour, seasoned with humour, shouts from every page. He throws down a timely gauntlet to centuries of tradition’ Tom Heap

‘Extraordinary. An affirmation of another kind of rural life that exists within this lie, and all the possibilities that are open to us if we defy it’ Nicola Chester

‘A rousing call to action that proposes practical interventions for how management of the countryside could – and should – be improved for the benefit of both people and environment’ Claire Ratinon

‘Radical and urgent, measured and considered … an essential place to start’ Dr Rose O’Neill, Chief Executive, Campaign for National Parks