David Matless, author of the seminal Landscapes of Englishness (1998, revised edition 2016), has made a triumphant return to the market with his 2023 book About England. Aimed at a general rather than an academic market—the affordable $35.00 cost of the book is indicative of this already—About England offers an invaluable addition to the growing canon of books on English national identity. Clearly structured into three parts—“Going About,” “English Places,” and “English Times”—with two subsections in each part covering topics such as “English Pastoral,” “English and Suburban,” and “English Heritage” (among others)—the book offers an in-depth and highly readable analysis of England in the twenty-first century that also covers the historical roots of and challenges to “Englishness” (or, as the book ultimately shows, “Englishnesses” in the plural) through history.

Matless, a cultural geographer based at the University of Nottingham in the UK, has made his name in academic circles as an expert in all matters of English cultural identity. His publication record covers various aspects of “England” and “identity” with a particular emphasis on the rural and landscape. About England is a book that, for me, stands out for its effortless bridging of various disciplines, covering subjects ranging from traditional pastoral study to literature, music, art, popular culture, and politics. It is this combination of subject areas that is a testament to Matless’ wide-ranging expertise, but that also makes this such a successful book discussing contemporary England.

Early on in the book, Matless makes it very clear that “England” or its associated identity term “Englishness” is not a clearly defined term but, rather, one that has changed and has been contested over centuries—despite often concerted political efforts to sell it as a known and clearly defined entity. He asserts that “the sense of England as a settled place is easily undermined by political anxieties and dramatic events” (72) and his book charts exactly this: the many anxieties and events that have shaped and changed Englishness over the years, covering, among many other things, the two World Wars of the twentieth century, the decline and ultimate end of empire, and the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the problems with “Englishness” in particular, Matless shows, is that it is a term that means many things to different people. Traditionally packaged and sold, especially by politicians with a more conservative agenda, as “rural,” “traditional,” “green and pleasant,” and consequently by extension problematically “exclusive” and “white,” About England charts different “Englishnesses” through the decades. Seamlessly and effortlessly slipping from geographical accounts to stories from 1970s punk music or literary criticism, the book offers a transdisciplinary rhizomatic reading of England from and for different perspectives. Matless provides detailed and nuanced readings of, by now, classics on (problematizing) English and British national identity such as Tom Nairn's The Break-Up of Britain (1977), Robert Colls and Philip Dodd's Englishness: Politics and Culture, 1880–1920 (1986), Robert Colls's Identity of England (2002), Paul Gilroy's There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation (1987), or Raphael Samuel's seminal three-volume Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity (1989). He covers government initiatives such as the Labour government's “Icons: a Portrait of England” project of the early 2000s. His discussion of films include classics such as Peter Hall's Akenfield (1974), Patrick Keiller's Robinson trilogy (1994, 1997, 2010), or Shane Meadows This is England (2006), and his extensive, England-focused discography and music analysis includes titles as diverse as Bowie's “The Little Bombadier” (1967), The Clash's “London Calling” (1979), Flanders and Swann's “Slow Train” (1963), Vera Lynn's “I Love This Land” (1982), and the Sex Pistol's “God Save the Queen” (1977).

As a literary scholar, what stood out for me in particular was his wide-ranging knowledge and in-depth discussion of literature on England, not just classics such as John Clare's, John Betjeman's, or Philip Larkin's respective poetry on England and the countryside, but also fiction ranging from John Drinkwater's little-known 1937 novel Robinson of England to, in no particular order and among many others, Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes (1926), V.S. Naipaul's The Enigma of Arrival (1987), Henry Green's Concluding (1948), and Melissa Harrison's 2018 novel All Among the Barley. Harrison's novel in particular seems to neatly summarize the various preoccupations of Matless’ book: a novel deeply steeped in yet challenging and ultimately subverting the preconceived notion of the unchangeable English pastoral, a novel that, albeit set in the rural Suffolk of the 1930s, ultimately discusses issues that were so prominent in the 2016 Brexit Referendum debate and that have become a highly politicized topic ever since: England and national identity on the one side, the topics of “change” and “migration” on the other.

There is so much more in Matless’ masterly book that is worth mentioning: his sympathetic discussion of the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony, masterfully choreographed by Danny Boyle; photographic engagement with England by artists such as Simon Roberts or Martin Parr; his discussions of popular culture, for instance TV programs such as The Darling Buds of May (1991–3), Only Fools and Horses (1981–91), Brideshead Revisited (1981), or Blackadder Goes Forth (1989). About England, in short, is a book full to the brim with insightful discussions and thoughtful challenges, simultaneously a celebration of, and challenge to, English national identity in its various forms. It is a book suitable for a general readership but also for scholars and researchers in the field that will hopefully find the wide visibility and recognition it deserves.