Peculiar Privilege. A Social History of English Foxhunting, 1753-1885.

The best introduction to the social history of fox-hunting as the chief leisure activity of the English aristocracy, and of a central social institution and symbol of traditional pre-industrial society. The landmark book provides a clear understanding of the ways in which landed society functioned, and of the assumptions that governed it. The work emphasizes the strength of older pre-industrial assumptions and relationships, as it moves through the railway age, concluding with the Great Depression of Agriculture when hunting changed irrevocably. In the years between the mid-18th century and the British agricultural depression of the 1880s fox-hunting assumed a key cultural role. It was transformed from the private, informal recreation of a few country squires to a highly organised, extremely influential public institution.